Despite govt push, few takers for electric vehicles

Vijay C Roy

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 21

Electric Vehicles (EVs) are inevitably mentioned as a part of the solution whenever there is a spike in oil prices. However, despite many companies foraying into the EV space, the EV penetration is extremely low at 0.32% nationally. In North, it is even lower than the national average and varies between 0.017 and 0.23%.

Uttar Pradesh, Delhi and Karnataka have the highest number of registered electric vehicles in the country. As many as 8,77,117 electric vehicles were registered in India as on December 8, 2021, according to data shared by Minister of State for Heavy Industries Krishan Pal Gurjar in the Lok Sabha recently.

In North, Haryana has the highest number of registered electric vehicles at 24,379 followed by Punjab (8,190) and Chandigarh (1,791).

According to industry, high upfront cost is a deterrent to the value-conscious Indian consumers who would rather prefer a cheaper internal combustion (IC) vehicle. The EVs are sold at a premium of 20% to 50% as compared to IC vehicles.

Secondly, lack of charging infrastructure is acting as a stumbling block in the adoption of electric vehicles. There are a few thousand public charging stations across the country for charging over 8.77 lakh vehicles. This poor density of the charging stations is limiting the ease of EV usage.

According to industry leaders, there are other factors too which are limiting the growth of EVs in the country. According to them, there are only a few banks that offer finance options for electric vehicles.

In order to promote the use of electric vehicles, the government launched Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Hybrid & Electric vehicles in India (FAME India) Scheme in 2015. Currently, phase-II of the FAME India Scheme is being implemented for a period of five years i.e. from April 1, 2019 with a total budgetary support of Rs 10,000 crore. In addition to this, creation of charging infrastructure is being supported to address range anxiety among users of electric vehicles.