India Ready To Promote Sustainable Green Mobility Through Electric Transportation

The Indian Road Transport is known for generating large volumes of CO2 emissions. In fact, 40 per cent of ambient air quality pollution originates from the transport sector, posing a severe threat to the environment and aggravating the risk of global warming in future. The country has already set an ambitious target of achieving net zero emissions by 2070, and thus the transition to green mobility is being accelerated by encouraging the faster adoption of Electric Vehicles (EVs). Research has shown that about 2-tonnes of annual CO2 tailpipe emissions can be avoided by simply replacing an ICE car with an EV. When collectively done for all the vehicles across the nation, the environmental effect can be magnanimous. Clearly, a conscious, speedy shift to e-mobility has the potential to pave the way for a cleaner, greener India.

Over the last couple of years, the hustle bustle in the EV space has increased with rapid positive movements taking place from time to time. The government has introduced a flurry of initiatives in the form of favourable policies, supportive regulations, subsidies, incentives, and tax relief, which has motivated an increasing number of customers and automakers to dive into the space and expand the reach of the ecosystem.

All efforts are in line with the EV@2030 campaign, which aims to convert 30 per cent of all the country’s vehicles to EVs by 2030. EV infrastructure and technology are also being aggressively strengthened to ensure a seamless transition to electric road transport.

Various state governments have also formulated their own ambitious EV policies and targets. For public transport, many states have already deployed a large fleet of electric buses. As a key move to increase the penetration of EVs, some of them have entirely banned the registration of petrol two-wheelers in their states, with the target of doing the same for petrol-three wheelers and four-wheelers in the coming year 2024. Capping the sale and registration of non-electric vehicles for both public and personal mobility would give a significant push to eco-friendly, green transportation in these states/ cities.

Additionally, various states are providing exclusive incentives and capital subsidies for EV manufacturing, research, and development. However, although much is being done and many more consumers are switching to EVs, yet the current EV penetration in India stands at a low of 1-2 per cent. The share of EVs in total vehicle sales grew from 1.7 per cent in 2021 to 4.7 per cent in 2022, largely dominated by two-wheeler and three-wheeler segments. Clearly, the numbers might have picked up, but there is still an enormous scope of improvement.

To ensure a rapid transition to green mobility, it is important for the government to address the existing challenges such as high capital cost, inadequate charging infrastructure. The country currently has only 3000 EV charging stations, whereas the country demands many more. 

Further, a greater integration with IoT can create breakthroughs in the EV space by enabling efficient EV monitoring and management. By deploying IoT-enabled smart, connected devices for electric vehicles, the rapidly growing fleet can be intelligently monitored in real-time. The use of IoT can also help in the development of smart EV features such as fault alert systems, charge prediction, anti-theft. These superior features will further trigger the consumer interest in these vehicles, thus giving a bigger push to EV adoption and penetration.

Taking a sneak peek at the road ahead, it would be right to say that strong, collective support from the government, policymakers, automotive companies and consumers would enable the country to achieve a seamless transition to sustainable green mobility. India is currently the world’s third largest emitter of greenhouse gases, and only a faster EV adoption rate can change this grim scenario.

(The author is Co-Founder and CEO at iVoomi Energy)