India changing focus of new electric vehicles policy
India’s government is preparing a new EV policy that will move away from a pan-indian into a more focussed approach. Rather than trying to inspire a transition to electric transport nationwide, they are planning to concentrate on pilot projects in major urban centres.
With the relaunch of India’s FAME (faster adoption and manufacturing of hybrid and electric vehicles) scheme being imminent, more news regarding the policies are trickling out of government circles in Delhi.
Anonymous sources quoted by the Economic Times India speak of a subsidies initially being rolled out on a smaller scale in order to maximise impact. The policy is likely to be announced at a global e-mobility summit on September, 7. According to the ETI, the government is thinking to begin with creating favourable ecosystems in nine polluted cities with a population of over four million, and gradually move to cities with populations of one million-plus. Traffic-heavy corridors such as Mumbai-Pune and Delhi-Chandigarh are being identified as well, according to the newspaper.
This approach would be in line with earlier reports saying that India would channel funds away from grants for buying private electric cars and into subsidies for EVs used by drivers working for shared mobility services such as Ola and Uber. The reasoning is that those cars are driven most regularly and could thus be a more effective measure to decrease air pollution levels.
The uptake of electric cars has been particularly slow in India, not the least because of low income levels. A policy that tries to maximise efficiency thus seems to be well in order. Moreover, the change in policy is also designed to give carmakers more time for the transition.
The timeline for the policy is still in the making but the aim remains to exchange one third of gas guzzlers with electric vehicles by 2030.
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