Targets in State Policies Need to Complement National EV Forecasts
The automobile industry, especially the Electric Vehicle market, is growing at a rapid pace in India. Government policies (FAME-related), participation of start-ups in manufacturing, and the simultaneous growth in charging infrastructure has fuelled faster adoption of Electric Vehicles.
A report by Government of India’s think-tank NITI Aayog, in partnership with Rocky Mountain Initiative (RMI) India, analyses that if FAME II and other measures are successful, India could realize EV sales penetration of 30% of private cars, 70% of commercial cars, 40% of buses and 80% of two and three- wheelers by 2030. These figures have been considered synonymous with the national vision. When this is converted to absolute numbers, it amounts to 8 crore EVs by 2030.
A closer look at the individual state policies indicates that the targets for EV adoption under different state EV policies are not well aligned with the sales forecast envisaged by NITI Aayog. They have varying timelines and sales of different numbers of EVs to be achieved by the end of the target period – some states with percentage of new vehicle registrations to be EVs and others with absolute number of EVs to be added on roads. The charts shown below indicate the same:
Figure 1: States/UTs with EV Targets in Volume Units:
Figure 2: Key States/UTs with EV targets as percentage of New Vehicle registrations:
Further, while there are few state policies which have defined clear targets and incentives for electric vehicle charging infrastructure, most of them have no clear targets nor incentives or roadmap to increase penetration. There are very few guidelines defining targets for charging infrastructure. Most of the policies currently only offer support from 2022 to 2026 and hence not in concert with the national objective aiming till 2030. In addition, National EV sales objectives are given in both percentages and numbers, but combined state targets are not the same. As shown in the above charts (Figure 1 and Figure 2), this is either a percentage of all the new vehicle registrations or an absolute number for each state.
To enable coordinated and concerted efforts, the targets defined in state EV guidelines should complement India’s national EV sales projections. In addition, the state-level EV policies need to define not just targets but also incentives and tax rebates to achieve these objectives. India, hence, requires a framework wherein the Central Govt.’s EV sales objectives align with the polices of each state in the direction of achieving aggressive EV penetration goals. This will ensure that the ground-level targets indicate an actual picture of the nation-wide EV sales projections and validating if going with the current progress, this sales objective could be turned into a reality.