The automotive industry needs to move away from polluting fuels and focus on green energy such as battery electric, hydrogen and ethanol, policy-makers and auto industry executives agreed on Tuesday at Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) annual convention. Road transport and highways minister Nitin Gadkari asked industry to expedite the adoption and share of green fuel technologies such as hydrogen, electric and bio-fuels.
While hydrogen is still a few years away from being made commercially available, ethanol and bio-diesel, both biofuels, are available in the market. The country is rapidly adopting electric vehicles across segments such as two-wheelers, three-wheelers, four-wheelers and commercial vehicles.
While incentives would be welcomed by manufacturers, there is presently no dearth of demand for EVs in India. In FY23, more than 1.24 million EVs were registered in India, which was a more than two-fold growth compared to FY22.
Between January and September, EVs sales surged past one million units which is nearly the total clocked in the January to December period of the previous fiscal , as per data shared by Vahan.
KN Radhakrishnan, director and CEO, TVS Motor said, “Last month we did more than 25,000 units sales of EVs. More than 25% of the sales of our scooter range is now electric. We need to be proactive and invest in technologies and gauge the market trend.”
Mahindra & Mahindra, Tata Motors, Maruti Suzuki and Hyundai have committed to launch at least five fully electric products each over the next 5-7 years. Several other companies such as Skoda Auto Volkswagen, Renault, Nissan, Kia, MG Motor, BYD, are also firming up plans to bring in electric cars to the Indian market.
Indian companies are not just building electric vehicles for themselves for their global partners as well. For instance, Bajaj Auto and TVS Motor Company are working on electric two-wheelers for their overseas partners KTM and BMW.
Radhakrishnan added that TVS has multiple product launch plans in the EV segment. “The BMW CE02 was completely designed and developed by us. The 11kW vehicle will be launched next year. It is neither a scooter nor a motorcycle. We are going to see electric penetration in two-wheelers faster and higher.”
Though hydrogen fuel is not available commercially, truck and bus makers have not only started development work on hydrogen trucks but also started supplying such vehicles to consumers for running on a captive basis. Ashok Leyland has committed to supply hydrogen-powered trucks to Reliance Industries.
