General Studies Paper-3

Context

• NITI Aayog launched the Report on ‘Unlocking a $200 Billion Opportunity: Electric Vehicles in India.
  • This report offers a timely and comprehensive review of current challenges, alongside actionable recommendations to fast-track the EV transition in India.

Major Highlights

• The key objectives of India’s EV Push: 
  • Reduced dependence on imported fuel;
  • Increased share of renewable energy by leveraging the storage capacity of EV batteries;
  • Reduced Greenhouse Gases (GHG) emissions;
  • Improved air quality;
  • Improved Plant Load Factor (PLF) of electricity generating plants;
  • Becoming a leader in a rapidly growing global market.
• Goal: India seeks to attain a 30% share of electric vehicles, in the total vehicles sold, by 2030.
• Adoption of EVs: Sales of EVs in India went up from 50,000 in 2016 to 2.08 million in 2024 as against global EV sales having risen from 918,000 in 2016 to 18.78 million in 2024.
  • Adoption of EV has been increasing in India but has been slower than the pace in some of the leading countries like the US, EU and China.
• India’s Progress: India has progressed to only about 7.6 % of the sales in 2024 being electric, which is far behind its target of 30% by 2030.
  • Thus, it has taken nearly 10 years to reach a penetration level of 7.6% and now needs to increase this share by over 22% in the next 5 years alone.

Challenges

• There are challenges of financing vehicles, especially electric buses and electric trucks.
• Inadequacy of charging facilities on one hand and low utilization of existing public charging facilities on the other hand.
• Lack of adequate awareness regarding EV performance among public and private stakeholders.
• Inadequate data and regulatory gaps hinder evidence-based decision making.

Strategy for Accelerating EV Adoption in India

• Moving from incentives to Mandates: Announce a clear policy, with target timelines, for Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) adoption.
  • Design a progressively more stringent plan for mandating the production and purchase of EVs and disincentivising the continued use/production of ICE vehicles.
• Saturation instead of thin distribution: Design and start a saturation program to support 5 cities over 5 years.
  • Have entities in the States to manage this program.
  • Scale up to 20 cities and then to 100 cities.
• Enable financing for e-Buses and e-Trucks: Create a pooled fund with contributions from the public budget and multilateral.
  • Design and launch an appropriate scheme to channel the funds.
• Scale up research for new battery technologies: Set up an academia-industry-government partnership for accelerating research on new battery chemistries.
• Strategic scaling of charging infrastructure: Identify 20 high density corridors for e-Bus and e-Truck operations and commission a study to identify strategic locations for charging hubs based on current voltage patterns on these corridors.
  • Establish nodal agencies in each state to facilitate and enable more charging stations to be established.