Electric Buses: India Market Analysis

Executive Summary
There is a tremendous underlying opportunity for an effective delivery of road transport service in India. The advent of electric buses (e-buses) will pave the way for future of efficient mass public transport system. Apart from being cleaner and greener, the major advantage of an e-bus is its extremely low operational and maintenance (O&M) expenditure per unit km. The Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of e-buses is 10-20% lesser than that of diesel buses.
In September 2017, the first commercial e-bus operations began in India in Himachal Pradesh. Since then, the e-bus market has evolved substantially. By March 2020, about 1,031 e-buses were sold across different states and transport undertakings. As per JMK Research estimates, additional 1850 buses are likely to be sold in FY2021 and around 4640 units in FY2022.
E-Bus sales in India

Source: FY17-18 till FY19-20 numbers are taken from SMEV, projections for FY20-21 and FY21-22 by JMK Research
The e-bus market growth is fuelled by more than US$1 Bn worth of investment deals forged in the past few years with investors of varied business backgrounds. To keep up with the pace of e-bus induction and deployment onto the public roads, the charging systems and allied-infrastructure must also be enhanced and/or developed systematically to overcome local-specific challenges. Henceforth, this report shall briefly touch upon the significant developments in the Indian e-bus market, policies, tender analysis, charging infrastructure and so on.
Contents
- Executive Summary
- Market Overview
- TCO Analysis of Diesel v/s Electric buses
- Modes of E-bus procurement
- Outright purchase model
- Gross Cost Contract model
- Policies
- Central Policies
- State policies
- Tender analysis
- Market Size
- Investments
- Charging Infrastructure
- Key Players
- Conclusion
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