Swaraj BaggonkarMoneycontrol
The one thing that may have escaped everybody’s attention in the list of announcements made during the Union Budget 2017-18 was the 43 percent rise in allocation for hybrid and electric vehicles.
From Rs 122.9 crore allotted last year the government has set aside Rs 175 crore as subsidy to be given this year for purchase of hybrid and electric vehicles. The new allocation is itself more than a two-fold jump compared to the allocation during its inaugural year of 2015-16 when Rs 75 crore were due to be spent.
In an interview to Moneycontrol Pawan Goenka, Managing Director, Mahindra & Mahindra, said, “I am counting on this year being the year of electrics.”
“Mr (Piyush) Goyal [Minister of State, Independent Charge Power Coal, New and Renewable Energy] has announced that he would like the government of India to buy 1 lakh electric vehicles and by year 2030 the nation aims to be 100 percent electric. The Chairman of SoftBank, Masayosi Son announced that he would want to donate 1 lakh electric vehicles to Ola. Of course, if all of this happens it will exceed the global capacity of electric vehicles. So, even if 10 percent of this happens that will be a significant advancement of electric vehicles in India”, added Goenka.
A total of 118,118 hyrbid and electric vehicles have been given subsidies since the inception of Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Hybrid and Electric (FAME) set up under the National Electric Mobility Mission Plan. This has resulted in a claimed saving of 8.47 million litres of fuel and a 21 million kilograms of CO2 reduction.
A total incentive of Rs 142 crore have been disbursed this far. A total of 46 models of two-wheelers and cars have received the benefit. Mahindra’s all-electric cargo van e-Supro has the highest incentive of Rs 187,000 while mild hybrids from Maruti Suzuki like the Ciaz and Ertiga have an incentive of Rs 13,000.
Not just car makers but commercial vehicle makers have also jumped onto the bandwagon especially since some State Transport Undertakings have shown keenness in running pure electric and hybrid buses.
“There is a push from both sides – passenger and commercial vehicles. There are buses being bought by states at a huge cost and also by the taxi segment”, Goenka added.
Tata Motors showcased two fully-electric buses on Wednesday priced in the range of Rs 1.6-2 crore along-side electric variants of the popular Super Ace, Magic Iris and Magic. The buses have on-board charging ports as well as WiFi.
The Tata Motors buses have a range of 150 kms with full load and takes eight hours to get fully charged. There is also an option of a flash charge which charges the roof-mounted batteries in 15 minutes. Tata Motors is working on developing fast charging technology for future generation electric vehicles.
In October last year Hinduja Group flagship company Ashok Leyland became the first commercial vehicle maker to launch an electric bus. Powered by Lithium-ion batteries the Circuit Bus has a range of 120 kms on a full charge and a top-speed of 75 kms an hour.
Speaking to Moneycontrol, Ravindra Pisharody, executive director (commercial vehicles), Tata Motors said, “Increasingly, we are getting very strong statements from the senior most in the ministry that they are going to look at operators who will be given the job of creating infrastructure. An operator who will be given the charge of opening infrastructure as well as operating it. So, his costs and amortisation are then recovered on a longer time frame.”
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