EV Registrations in Jan-Aug 2021 Surpasses Last Year’s Total Registrations
India is one of the few countries that support the global EV30@30 campaign, which targets to have at least 30% electrification of its new vehicle sales by 2030. Given this target and a strong government push over the last two years, the EV landscape is witnessing an increase in EV penetration in India. The push can be observed in terms of incentives offered under the FAME-II scheme and waiving-off of registration fees and road tax by many states.
The y-o-y increase in registrations of EVs in India during the last 4 years (except during 2020) is a testimony to the above stated fact. In fact, the number of registrations this year till August 2021 (1,45,061) has already surpassed last year’s total registrations (1,19,640). The share of EVs in total vehicle registrations this year (till August) doubled to 1.4% from 0.7% last year, which is a rather distinguished achievement for the EV sector.
Fig 1: EV registration trends in India
Source: Vahan Dashboard, JMK Research
The high-speed (HS) electric two-wheeler (E2W) registration witnessed a similar trend in the first eight months of this year wherein a growth of more than 120% was observed over the twelve months of CY 2020. The share of HS E2Ws in total 2W registrations this year (till August) more than tripled to 0.78% from 0.21% last year, which is again a distinguished achievement for the EV industry in India.
A similar pattern however is still absent for registered electric three-wheelers (E3W) that account for more than 65% of the overall registered EV sales in India. On the other hand, electric car (E-Car) registration which has rather been abysmal when compared to E2W and E3W, surprisingly witnessed a 40% growth in the number of registrations till August 2021 over the last calendar year.
One of the factors attributing to this rise is the pent-up demand from the months of April, May, and June when the country witnessed the second wave of Covid pandemic and hence an overall decline in registrations. Though there was an overall decline in the number of registrations however the OEMs were still introducing new models (~16) in the market in the said period. This is also believed to have contributed to the scaling up of demand by the customers in the subsequent months. The other major contributor has been the introduction of additional FAME II subsidies in June this year. The consumer sentiment this year has been quite upbeat given the recently announced state incentives on top of the FAME II incentives and the scalable deployment of charging infrastructure.
This pace is likely to build up going forward with leading brands venturing in this segment and launching new quality products in the market. This will further help in building consumer confidence to switch to EVs. However, to sustain this pace, it is also imperative to effectively manage the development of the EV ecosystem and its entities including charging infrastructure and other allied services.