ELECTRIC VEHICLES

Introduction

India is the 4th largest vehicle market in the world. Though the current automobile market is dominated by fossil fuel-based vehicles, the Indian government has set up ambitious targets and enacted conducive policies to ensure that electric vehicles replace fossil fuel-based vehicles as the primary mode of transport. Under the National Electric Mobility Plan (NEMMP) 2020, there is an ambitious target to achieve 6-7 million sales of hybrid and electric vehicles year on year from 2020 onwards (1).  Additionally, the Government of India seeks to realize the electric dream of 400 million customers by the year 2030 (2).  Taking a proactive step towards achieving these targets, recently the government announced the Phase II of the Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Hybrid and Electric vehicles (FAME) scheme, with an outlay of Rs. 10,000 Crore for a period of 3 years commencing from 1st April 2019 (3).  The scheme includes demand incentives to the customers for purchasing electric vehicles, and incentives to the manufacturers for research and development besides developing the charging infrastructure (4).  In addition to the economic benefits, especially the job creation potential in the MSME sector, making the switch to electric vehicles shall have significant environmental benefits as well. Vehicles eligible under the FAME II scheme can cumulatively save 5.4 million tons of oil equivalent over their lifetime, worth INR 17.2 thousand crores (5). 

Keeping the aforementioned benefits of switching to electric vehicles, the ‘Electric Vehicles mission of the PM-STIAC aims to develop vehicle sub-systems and components specific to Indian requirements. It is to assist the speedy adoption of electric vehicles by making their use viable.