Government is considering proposing an electric vehicle deadline for two-wheeler manufacturers and makers have started responding…
Two major Indian two wheeler manufacturers, TVS Motor and Bajaj Auto have raised serious concerns on the Government’s speculated 2025 deadline for mass adoption of electric two-wheelers. It is in reports that the Government intends to make 100 percent electric two wheelers mandatory from 2025 (and 2023 for three-wheelers).
Electric vehicle deadline – Reactions
Mr Venu Srinivasan, Chairman of TVS Motor Company sounded sceptical about the supporting charging infrastructure and he fears that this move may even derail Indian auto manufacturing and put at risk 4 million jobs.
Automakers everywhere are supportive of the overall goal of introducing electric vehicles (EV) and easing consumers into electric mobility.
As a result we have been doing serious development work to ensure we can offer a mass market EV product that delivers on safety and high performance. This is necessary to co-opt consumers into making a switch, so it’s driven by consumer willingness and, therefore, adopted easily and widely. The supporting infrastructure for charging also needs to be as robust as conventional fuel options.
The auto industry globally is still a long way away from all of this, as is India.
To force an unrealistic deadline for mass adoption of electric two and three wheelers, will not just create consumer discontent, it risks derailing auto-manufacturing in India that supports 4 million jobs…
Rajiv Bajaj echoed the thoughts and shared three concerns on this proposed ruling. He also questioned the government on leaving out four wheelers from this ambit.
On the reported initiative of the Government of India mandating 100% EVs for sale of 3W by 2023 and 2W by 2025, I completely agree with the spirit of this initiative in that India must demonstrate a pioneer rather than laggard mindset. However I have 3 execution related concerns.
First that it may be impractical to target such a scale when none of the stakeholders currently possess any meaningful experience with any of the pieces of the EV puzzle. Secondly that it’s ill-timed to target a date so close to BS6 implementation. And finally, to target two and three wheelers but not cars etc makes it an incomplete initiative.
On what could be better solutions Mr Bajaj said,
An appropriate middle path to my mind would be in the first phase to target such a changeover through Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency (CAFÉ) norms / electric vehicles for all vehicle categories from a particular date such as 2023 or 2025 starting with the most polluted cities of India. Basis the learnings from that experience a collective plan can be put together to scale up as desired”
Mr Srinivasan also said that a gradual adoption approach should be followed.
We need gradual and seamless adoption of EVs to avoid such collateral damage and ensure our technology-driven disruption is positive and lasting.
It is already known that Bajaj and TVS are working on electric two-wheelers. Bajaj has, in fact, created a separate brand called as Urbanite for this initiative and the first product is already on the roads for final testing (check spy pics).
