Editorial: EVs go vroom vroom

CHENNAI: One of the most salient observations that attendees at last week's Bharat Mobility Global Expo shared was the transition towards green mobility which had been embraced by automaking giants across the board. Almost all the major launches witnessed at this automobile extravaganza, cutting across price brackets and brands, were fixated on the notion of sustainable, green transit, keeping in mind the government's target for a rapid shift to electric vehicles (EV) in India. Behemoths such as Maruti Suzuki have invested around Rs 2,100 cr for their EV offering. Interestingly, even the luxury car segment has jumped onboard the EV bandwagon with major brands like BMW and Mercedes pitching their conscientious luxury cars.

The shift in the consumer's mindset is palpable as the recent Think Mobility report by Google and BCG tells us that one in three consumers in India is considering investing in EV for their next purchase. The growth potential for EV is highest in developing nations like India as compared to the prospects in developed economies which already have a high EV penetration rate. However, it must be added that the cost of acquisition is a pain point for most middle income buyers.

And it explains why currently, EV sales comprise just 2.4% of passenger vehicle sales, which again falls back on the metric of just 3.3% — the small share of India’s population that owns cars. But there are other hurdles to the transition too, like the adequate charging infrastructure. Out of the 25,000 publicly accessible electric chargers installed nationally, a dismal percentage, under 50%, or 12,100 were operational as of Feb 2024. It's also worth noting that the fast charging public chargers are limited in numbers compared to the home chargers that take anywhere between 6-8 hours for a full cycle of charging.

Other bottlenecks to the charging infrastructure include 90% of people not having access to a fixed parking spot, which makes the point of home charging redundant. As of now, the largest numbers of public chargers are in New Delhi, Maharashtra, Karnataka and UP. However automobile manufacturers are now working backwards to provide the charging infrastructure, not just via home chargers, but even through fast charger dealerships across major cities. Hyundai, a favourite of the middle-class, has unveiled plans to set up 100 charging stations in Tamil Nadu, while pushing its EV that can clock 473 km on a single charge.

The Think Mobility report has suggested a few workarounds for pushing the EV agenda forward. These include improving the availability and discoverability of charging infrastructure, offering easy financing options, scaling up localised manufacturing of EV, extending warranties, ensuring transparency in battery health, and introducing new models. Thankfully, the government is viewing these developments with a keen eye and gearing up to create an ecosystem for EV.

The administration is now considering R&D, investments, along with funding towards setting up dedicated assembly lines for EV in existing factories, for incentivising carmakers in the scheme that was announced last year to promote local manufacturing of high end EVs. Half a dozen players expressed interest in the scheme wherein companies are allowed to make investments of $500 mn in a greenfield factory to manufacture EV from the date of approval within the next three years to avail of concessional import duties.