Last week the Nitin Gadkari-headed Ministry of Road Transport and Highways concluded a tender inviting companies for leasing electric cars for its official use. A minimum of five such cars will be run daily for ‘at least 100 km at a stretch’, stated a notification.
Further, the municipal corporation of Nagpur, the home town of Gadkari, is talking to Mahindra & Mahindra, the only manufacturer of electric cars in India, to procure 200 electric cars to be run as taxis in that city.
Speaking to Moneycontrol at a recent CII event held in Mumbai Gadkari said: “Very soon we will have electric taxis running in Nagpur”.
Reducing Fossil Fuels
These are the small but initial steps taken by the government towards promotion of environment-friendly mobility solutions, highlighting the need to reduce dependence on traditional petrol, diesel and CNG-fired engines.
In fact, the government plans to completely eliminate traditional fuels as per plans unveiled by Power Minister Piyush Goyal who also said that the Center is supporting electric vehicles ‘in a big way’. “The idea is that by 2030, not a single petrol or diesel car should be sold in the country”, Goyal said recently.
While the Center is pushing for electric vehicles aggressively state governments are not very far behind. Plans are afoot by various state governments to have fully electric buses that would be replacing the traditional diesel and CNG-run intra-city buses.
A pilot e-bus run in Shimla was carried out recently by Tata Motors, India’s biggest bus maker, on the Parwanoo-Kalka route. The company is bidding for the order for 75 electric buses (worth Rs 150 crore) from the Himachal Pradesh Road Transport Corporation. The same corporation bought 25 electric buses for Rs 48 crore from a Chinese company BYD to be run at an altitude of 13,000 feet.
Ravindra Pisharody, Executive Director (commercial vehicles), Tata Motors said, “If the government increases the subsidy for fully electric buses, which should be higher than those given on diesel hybrid (Rs 55 lakh) and CNG hybrid (Rs 65 lakh) then it would make the costs of making electric buses more practical”.
A 12 meter electric bus from Tata Motors costs Rs 2 crore while a 9 meter bus costs Rs 1.6 crore without subsidy. The Mumbai Metropolitan Regional Development Authority (MMRDA) was in talks with Tata Motors for buying electric buses. The deal was reworked later to include 25 confirmed units of diesel hybrid electric buses (diesel engine + electric motor).
Benefits of a JV
India’s drive towards electrification got its biggest shot in the arm only last month when Suzuki, Toshiba and Denso announced a tri-partite joint venture for setting up a lithium-ion battery manufacturing plant in the country.
The plant will bring down cost of batteries to a significant extent which until now were imported from China, the battery manufacturing capital of the world. Batteries alone make up 50 percent of the cost of an electric car.
Car market leader Maruti Suzuki, which is working independently towards alternate fuel technology such as electrics, will be a major beneficiary of the battery plant. The Delhi-based company has confirmed that batteries produced by its parent Suzuki will be bought by it for its own cars.
Discover the latest Business News, Sensex, and Nifty updates. Obtain Personal Finance insights, tax queries, and expert opinions on Moneycontrol or download the Moneycontrol App to stay updated!
