Electric vehicles evolution in India

India has been actively exploring many opportunities in the automotive sector and electric mobility has emerged as one of the potential greener solutions. So let us discuss electric vehicles evolution in India.

Electric vehicles journey in the country has been started almost two decades ago with the launch of an electric three-wheeler Vikram SAFA developed by Scooters India Ltd. The company was able to sell around 400 units. The vehicles were equipped with 72 V lead-acid battery.

Mahindra and Mahindra Ltd. launched its first electric-three wheeler in 2001 in the name of ‘Bijlee’. Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) also introduced an electric bus using a 96 V lead-acid battery pack but the project has been stopped due to the product quality and cost.

Efforts to promote the growth of electric vehicles

In 2001, a Bangalore based company ‘REVA’ entered the Indian EV sector in the four-wheel segment and could sell more than 1500 vehicles.

The electric vehicles initial success and failures led the automotive players to enter into the EV segment with electric two-wheelers and three-wheelers, etc. In India, the two-wheelers segment is a leading segment but in case of electric vehicles, three-wheelers are witnessed to be the leading and then comes two-wheelers.

It is estimated that more than 7 lakhs electric three-wheelers are operating on India roads and their numbers are steadily increasing. However, most of the e-rickshaws that are plying on Indian roads run on lead-acid batteries.

In the four-wheel segment, a few years ago the Mahindra & Mahindra, launched E2O with two battery variants of 48 V and 72 V and later launched the Mahindra Verito in the sedan segment.

Tata Motors also entered in the electric car segment with the introduction of the Tata Tigor with a battery capacity of 72 V and a maximum power of 30 KW.

Saudi Arabia opportunities and challenges of promoting EVs

In the commercial vehicles segment, electric buses have been introduced s in existing public transport fleet in selected states. Himachal Pradesh has been the first state in India to operate electric buses on selected routes. Cities like Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Kolkata, etc. The public procurement of electric vehicles is expected to bring initial scale effect to original equipment manufacturers (OEM) thereby helping them generating volume and reduced prices for consumers. There are projects that are also running at a pilot level in the freight segment.

Recently, the Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari promoted a pilot project to run electric buses with private investment. During the fourth UITP India Bus seminar, through video conference, while addressing the bus transport industry Nitin Gadkari has promoted the new pilot project through the public-private partnership (PPP) model.

The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, Government of India and NITI Aayog has set a target of 30% of electric vehicles on road by 2030. The total number of electric two-wheelers to be on Indian roads would be 211 million, while for cars and buses it will be around 34 million and 2.5 million respectively.

Electric Vehicles Needs, Reasons & Challenges in India

Needs 

• The demand for energy and transport has been increased in urban.
• The advanced battery technology leads to a higher amount of energy densities, fast charging, and reduction in battery degradation.
• High amounts of oil imports in the country ensures energy security using alternate energy sources. Public transportations like buses and autorickshaws need to be transformed to e-vehicles as half of the population uses it in India.

Opportunities

It helps the environment to be unpolluted by the dangerous gases produced by the vehicles. It gives an eco-friendly opportunity to the consumers and the industrialists. Carbon emissions can be reduced by slowing down the climate change resulting in reduce the Air-Pollution related deaths by switching the electric vehicles and can bring global warming. With Air-pollution, Noise pollution can also be stopped as it tends to be more silent than other vehicles.

EVs challenges in India

• Creating an EV charging infrastructure
• Lack of skilled workers
• Lack of local reserves such as lithium-ion and cobalt
• High-cost battery
• Competition with other ICE vehicles

(source: European Union’s Resource Efficiency Initiative)

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