Environmental concerns push demand for electric vehicles

Electric vehicles sales for last financial year stood at 22,000 units, 20,000 two wheelers and 2000 four-wheelers

Growing concerns over pollution levels in cities like Delhi, clampdown on polluting vehicles and a subsidy scheme started by the government have helped push demand for electric vehicles in India.

Electric vehicles (EV) sales for the past financial year stood at 22,000 units (20,000 two-wheelers and 2,000 four-wheelers) as compared to 16,000 EVs sold during FY 2014-15, posting a jump of 37.5 per cent.

Society of Manufacturers of Electric Vehicles, the apex lobby body which has a membership of eight-10 two- and four-wheeler electric vehicle making companies, has disclosed the figures while stating the trend is encouraging.

The government-funded Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Electric Vehicles which offers heavy subsidies to buyers of electric vehicles has helped push growth. The government has allocated Rs 795 crore under this scheme till 2020.

Mahindra Reva the only electric car maker in India witnessed a two-fold jump in sales in Delhi after the Supreme Court banned sales of big cars and sports utility vehicles in the national capital in December.

"We are quite delighted at the growing number, which reflects increased awareness among commuters and the fact that people are seeing a good value proposition in EVs,” said Sohinder Gill, Director- Corporate Affairs, SMEV.

However, the lobby body also pointed out that the ambitious target of having 5-6 million electric vehicles by 2020 on Indian roads as visualized by the National Electric Mobility Mission Plan (NEMMP) 2020 as well as FAME would be tough to achieve unless ground level infrastructural deficiencies were removed and credit facilities eased for buying green vehicles.

“Intentions at policy level abound but government at every level, be it Centre, State or Municipal, now has to go the extra mile to facilitate mass migration to green mobility,” pointed out Gill.

Lack of basic infrastructure facilities like charging stations and difficulties in availing credit from banks for purchase of EVs have been cited as chief bottlenecks to large scale migration to green mobility.

“SMEV has developed a technology for charging station and can easily set-up 1000 charging station across the city in a span of 3 months. One charging station costs around INR 30,000 which is very minimal to create an efficient charging infrastructure for EVs. The only thing we need is the government’s intention and support to create a wide and accessible network of charging stations at every convenient point", added Gill.