Electric two-wheelers miss 1-million milestone target

Vijay C Roy

Chandigarh, March 30

As the current fiscal ends today, the sale of electric two-wheelers has achieved only 71% of the target of one million units set by the NITI Aayog. However, as compared to the previous fiscal, the sales have gone up by 185%. In the last fiscal, the industry sold 2,49,621 units.

According to data compiled by the Society of Manufacturers of Electric Vehicles as per VAHAN portal, 7,12,043 electric two-wheelers were sold across the country in 2022-23 till March 27.

As per analysts, one of the critical drivers of growth is the increase in startups in the E2W space such as Ather, Ola, PUR EV and Revolt. As a result, E2W sales across the country are on the rise, including in tier III and tier IV cities.

According to the data, the electric two-wheeler makers who witnessed a massive rise in sales includes Ola Electric, Okinawa Autotech (P) Ltd, Hero Electric, Ampere Vehicles, TVS Motor, Ather Energy and Bajaj.

Sources said supply chain disruptions besides the consumer sentiment taking a hit due to several incidents of EVs catching fire were the factors responsible for falling short of the target. Moreover, the sale of electric two wheelers also hit a roadblock as several manufacturers came under the scanner for alleged violations of local sourcing rules under the Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Electric Vehicles (FAME) scheme. As a result, the government stopped the subsidy programme for over a dozen E2W makers last year after receiving complaints about misappropriation of subsidies.

In addition to this, high acquisition cost, range anxiety and lack of infrastructure are also acting as stumbling blocks in EV penetration. According to the industry, high upfront cost is acting as a deterrent to the value-conscious Indian consumers who would rather prefer a cheaper internal combustion (IC) vehicle. EVs are dearer by 20%-50% as compared to the IC vehicles, mainly because of battery cost, which is majorly imported and constitutes 40-50% of the total vehicle cost.

Secondly, lack of charging infrastructure is to blame for the slow adoption of electric vehicles. There are a few thousand public charging stations across the country for charging over 10 lakh vehicles. The poor density of the charging stations is also limiting the ease of EV usage.