What is the issue?
Despite policy uncertainties, companies in the transportation sector are spending big on infra and R&D to be part of the ongoing electric revolution.
What is the roadmap?
- Transportation sector accounts for over 10% of India’s carbon emissions.
- Thus the government is keen to switch from polluting internal combustion engines to electric vehicles.
- However, it can’t dramatically alter the auto-industry landscape from two-wheelers to passenger vehicles and trucks.
- Automobiles gulp 30% of the petroleum from its refineries and since electric vehicles have fewer components than an internal combustion vehicle, the components sector could be devastated by a rapid switch-over to electric road power.
- Hence, the government has made a target that EVs will make up 33% of vehicles on the road only by 2030.
What are the initiatives taken in this regard?
- New ride-sharing or motorbike-taxi companies have sprung up in India in the last few years, which help to boost electric two-wheeler sales.
- Companies are getting involved in customising the vehicles to be made “stronger” to take the strain of multiple users in case of ride-sharing.
- Along with that, the companies need to be spent on a mix of R&D, manufacturing facilities, marketing and awareness-creation on electric vehicles.
- Automobile companies, along with ride-sharing ones, decided to set up charging networks in the metro cities like Delhi and Bengaluru.
- Some companies have aimed to build a plant and localise battery production with their own funds.
- They have even worked out an app to enable bookings at charging stations and say which ones have the right type of charger.
- All these initiatives are a welcoming move in the complete switch over to electronic vehicles in the country.
What should be the immediate focus?
- The auto majors are pushing for the government to give more support to hybrid vehicles in the coming years.
- A hybrid vehicle is one that uses more than one means of propulsion, wherein a petrol or diesel engine will be combined with an electric motor.
- Auto industry experts argue that hybrids would obviate the need for an extensive network of charging stations.
- It would also be a way of saving a large number of components firms that might be put out of business if EVs take over the roads totally.
- Thus, the immediate future of EVs lies with two-wheelers and public transport, focussing especially on hybrid vehicles.
- But as battery prices fall, there will be a transition from hybrid to electric vehicles, along with an increasing number of electric four-wheelers in the country.
Source: Business Line
