HOW 2023 COULD BE THE YEAR OF THE EV

THE POTENTIAL FOR GROWTH IN THE ELECTRIC VEHICLE SEGMENT IS MINDBOGGLING. BUT THE REVOLUTION IS CONFINED TO TWO-WHEELERS FOR NOW

- B.V.R. SUBBU

Early in 2018, the NITI Aayog released a study which claimed that accelerated adoption of electric and shared transportation could save $60 billion in diesel and petrol costs while cutting down as much as 1 gigatonne of carbon emissions by 2030. But that hardly ruffled any feathers—till road transport minister Nitin Gadkari announced that a 100 per cent switch to electric mobility by 2030 would be his aim, and the Indian government’s policy as well. Then all hell broke loose. Auto industry bosses went blue in the face, decrying electric vehicles (EVs) in private while making polite noises on the impracticality of the target in public.

A few weeks later, though unsure of the Aayog’s number crunching but agreeing with the broad direction, I stuck my neck out and told the Indian Machine Tool Manufacturers Association’s publication that a 100 per cent adoption of electric two-wheelers (E2W), three-wheelers (E3W) and four-wheel micro commercial vehicles appeared imminently feasible by 2030. The only caveats I raised were for the government to create an appropriate fiscal incentive regime and put in place the required physical charging infrastructure to encourage early adopters—because just the total cost of ownership of EVs would anyway take the game away from internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles.