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Abstract<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n India, having the fourth largest automobile industry, has been struggling to breathe, and has become the fifth most populated country globally. The roads are overburdened with conventional carbon-emitting vehicles and the switch to Electric Vehicles (EVs) has been long due. EVs are dramatically superior to Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) run vehicles attributing to minimum carbon emissions, lower operating cost in the long haul, and minimal maintenance. But they too face some speedbumps for their implementation in India: their cost price, lack of charging infrastructure, variety, and charging time. Indian Government set an aim of promising 30% of vehicles on road by 2030 to be EVs, implementing EVs in public transport and delivery-service platforms, primarily. The government has launched various schemes, subsidies, and grants to make this true but there are a lot of niche areas left unexplored. In addition to this, state governments have also implemented their own policies, the Delhi EV Policy of 2020 being the most recent one. The COVID-19 pandemic, an unexpected red light, made the world come to a screeching halt and has disturbed and possibly delayed these aims, but it also acted as a warning to make things better and make a move towards sustainability. The government must explore alternatives for proper implementation, like using renewable energy for electricity generation, local manufacturing of batteries for EVs, using already established petrol pumps with solar power stations as charging stations, adopting detachable batteries in the four-wheeler EV sector, etc.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Introduction<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n India, the land of the people, essentially, runs on wheels. Almost 60 lakh km long roads in an over 33 lakh sq. km country, housing over 136 crore people. With the fourth largest automobile industry [1], the country has been breathing air laden with soot and slowly choking on it, and according to research, there\u2019s only a decade worth of time left to stop climate change from being irreversible [2] and the switch to sustainability is looking us right in the eye, hopefully.<\/span><\/p>\n This is when the talk of exploring the sector of vehicles run by electricity initiates. The EV industry is already established and well implemented in some western nations like Netherland and Norway, but still is a pleasant stranger to India. Primarily, in India, EVs on the road include an array of vehicles ranging from the primary two-wheelers (motorcycle, scooters, yulu), three-wheelers (rickshaw), four-wheeler (electric cars) to multi-wheeler (buses and trucks). Further, they are classified according to the extent of electrification of the vehicle. There exist Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV), Hybrid Electric Vehicle (HEV), and Plug-in Hybrid Vehicle (PHEV).<\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Why Electric Vehicles over ICE run vehicles?<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n India currently holds the position of the fifth most polluted country in the world [3] and ranks second in the number of deaths attributed to holding vehicular transmissions [4] (more than 1.2 million every year) [5]. The country\u2019s streets are overburdened with Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) run vehicles operating on non-renewable energy of fossil fuels, like petrol and diesel and thereby, contributing to the ever-increasing CO2 emissions. There has been observed a perpetual rise in the graphs of vehicle ownership that inevitably leads to a spike in the demand for fossil fuels. The next obvious step for India must therefore be to switch to electric vehicles and use them as a weapon to combat the aggravated global warming and climate change. No tailpipe emissions and some EVs deriving energy from solar, wind, or hydropower sources ensure minimum, to sometimes absolute zero CO2 emissions. In addition to this, the shift will also bring down India\u2019s reliance on oil imports and strengthen the country and the currency. [6]<\/span><\/p>\n Apart from the obvious depletion in air pollution, Electric cars possess other attributes that make them dramatically superior to the ICE run cars. Most importantly, their operating cost is significantly lower than ICE cars. The electric cars are made up of more than half less than an ICE vehicle\u2019s components, and that constitutes minimal maintenance charges. The new technology has enabled EVs in a lot of regions to plug in and charge at the convenience of your house, and a couple of hours prove to be enough. [7] \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Even though electric cars pinch the pocket a little more than ICE vehicles, they prove to be more cost-effective in the long haul. It is considerably cheaper to charge a battery than to re-fuel a standard fuel tank. [8] BESCOM in its study shared that it charges the highest tariff for EV charging when compared to other states and fixed charges for slow and fast chargers comes out to be Rs. 60 per kW and Rs. 190 per kW respectively. The base rate charged is Rs. 5 per kWh for any EV with varying consumption pattern. [9] There also is an apparent difference in the performance and drivability of an electric car, adding up to the advantages.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Speedbumps in the process<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n It is well established that the shift to Electric Vehicles is a long due measure that reasonably, should have already be taken by a populous and toxic air quality hit India. Many would agree to this too. According to a survey in 2019, it was found that 90% of car owners of India were willing to make the switch to EVs, but the only thing that was stopping them were the speedbumps in the process, lack of infrastructure being a prominent one. [10]<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The lack of infrastructure in India for charging outlets breaks the chain of \u2018want\u2019 from the consumer. It hinders his\/her ease of using the product. An Electric car is useless without power. An electric car is deemed useless if the power station is too far because that will restrict its movement. Taking the example of China, which through EV infrastructure projects made a network of a million charging stations and granted easy access to more than 80% of the consumers. In the year 2018, India had 650 charging stations established all over the country whereas, on the other hand, China had 456000. [11] India, in its attempts towards the infrastructural development released an amendment in 2019 of guidelines for charging infrastructure of EVs. Under this, the government permitted various kinds of Charging Infrastructure including, Public Charging Station (PCS) which can be fast paced chargers or moderate\/slow chargers, Private Charging Stations which can be set up by any person for self-use at places like residence or offices and other at public places including malls, restaurants, etc. [12]<\/span><\/p>\n Maruti\u2019s Managing director, Kenichi Ayukawa listed inadequate charging infrastructure and high costs to be the prime challenges to selling EVs in India. [13] At present, since batteries of these vehicles cannot be manufactured in India itself, because of lack of availability of raw materials, is why the battery component constitutes about half of the total manufacturing costs, making the electric version heavier on the pocket than its ICE run version.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Thereafter, the charging time of EVs poses a big hassle for the consumers. Current EV chargers can take on an average of 8 hours [14] and even upon using a fast-paced charger, the time might stretch to more than an hour [15], whereas it takes literal minutes to refuel your ICE run vehicle.<\/span><\/p>\n The EV market has an array of choices launched in the west but only a handful in India due to lack of a well-established market, which in turn hinders the possibility of establishing a well-structured EV market.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The availability of an alternate fuel like CNG holds back the EV market from flourishing. This is because CNG is already popular, well implemented, still cleaner than petrol and diesel, and is already in use by a major portion of the population. [16] The consumer does not want to spend money to shift from an already well working system. It\u2019s not possible to just discard fleets of public transportation that have adopted this alternative and hence, even when the government provides subsidies and grants, the comfort delays the process.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Position of EVs in India<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Looking at the state of Indian roads, one thing that is assured is that there are a LOT of vehicles in use. But the question that arises is how many of them are electric vehicles? While electric rickshaws are a common sight, at present, electric vehicles only constitute 1% of total vehicle sales out of which, 95% of sales are those of electric two-wheelers. [17] Empirically, in the time frame of April to December of 2019, the sale of only 1,500 electric cars was recorded [18] which is disappointing, since India got its first electric car, REVA, in 2001. [19]<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Indian government following suit of western countries have set up the future goal of promising 30% of the vehicles on road to be EVs by 2030. For encouraging the same, the government of India has launched the Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of (Hybrid &) Electric Vehicles (FAME) schemes under the National Electric Mobility Mission Plan (NEMMP). Phase-II of the FAME Scheme has been sanctioned by the Indian government with an outlay of Rs. 10,000 Crore for 3 years, which was initiated from 1st\u00a0April 2019.\u00a0 <\/strong>According to thorough research, if these aims are acquired by the year 2030, they will tentatively result in saving of up to\u00a0474 million tons of oil equivalent (Mtoe) and 846 million tons of net CO2 emissions,\u00a0throughout their lifetime. [20]<\/span><\/p>\n The Indian EV market is budding from its infant stage. India\u2019s growth in the past had been stunned by the lack of necessary actions taken by the government, and delay in framing necessary policies. The same has been the case with the EV sector but recently, the Indian government has started to make progress by adopting various measures for evident improvement of the EV sector, while ousting conventional vehicles from their place of comfort. Only last year, the GST rate of EVs was reduced to a mere 5% from 12%, versus the 28% for combustion engine vehicles. In addition to this, an income tax deduction of a sum of Rs. 1.5 lakh is levied on the interest paid on loans, that are taken in the name of purchasing EVs. [21]<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Further, earlier this year, the government proposed notifications imposing an increase of Rs.3 per liter on excise duty and road cess on petrol and diesel, and an increase in road and infrastructure cess by Rs 1 per liter as an additional excise duty. [22] This has resulted in an indirect push towards adopting EVs.<\/span><\/p>\n Another far-fetched factor that the government took into consideration was the battery itself, that constituted almost 60% of the cost of EV. To promote the manufacture of these lithium-ion batteries locally, the government has exempted lithium-ion cells in custom duty to eventually, cut down the cost of EVs with the evident slash in the import bill. Custom duty has also been slashed for other EV parts like electric drive assembly, onboard charger, e-compressors, a charging gun, etc. [23] India has also been reaching out to countries with large lithium deposits and has been making perpetual diplomatic efforts to set up FTAs (Free Trade Agreements) with South American and South African countries. There have been developments through which India and Chile already has a trade development in place and India-Bolivia agreed to setting up a Lithium Battery production cell in India through supply of raw lithium from Bolivia, through a joint venture. [24] There is much left to be explored and negotiated on this front, especially, after the aversion from China for raw materials.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n