Society of Manufacturers of Electric Vehicles (SMEV) said that the sales of EVs in India fell 20 per cent in the financial year 2020-21 to 2,36,802 units. This figure stood at 2,95,683 units( including electric two-wheelers (E2W), electric three-wheelers (E3W) and electric four-wheelers (E4W)) in 2019-20.
In a statement, SMEV said that for FY21, the E2W segment sales declined by 6 per cent to 1,43,837 units, as compared to 1,52,000 units in FY20. It added that the FY21 E2W sales included 40,836 high-speed and 1,03,000 low-speed E2W.
The E3W segment registered sales of 88,378 units as against 140,683 units sold in FY20. The data doesn’t include E3Ws that are not registered with the transport authority.
However, for the E4W segment, the industry witnessed registration of 4,588 units, compared to 3,000 units in FY20 which is an increase of 53 per cent.
Sohinder Gill, who is the SMEV Director-General commented on the sales performance – “We were anticipating a good growth before the start of FY21, but sales remained stagnant due to various reasons. The sales in the electric three-wheeler and two-wheeler segment stood low as compared to last year. A good thing has happened that people have started moving towards advanced lithium ion batteries and the city-speed and high-speed category in the two-wheeler segment have witnessed growth. However, a lot more needs to be done to achieve the target under the FAME II scheme. Timely intervention by the government in a form of policy change is required to fuel the growth and achieve the target by the end of FY22.”
When it comes to EV financing, only a few banks like SBI and Axis, are offering loans on select models. The government should ask banks to offer loans on EVs to augment sales. It, however, said the future of EV in the B2B sector is positive with a lot of traction coming from this segment for the next 2-3 years with the likes of Amazon India and Flipkart announcing that they will deploy EVs in their fleet of delivery vehicles.
SMEV also pointed out that while many states, including Delhi, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Haryana, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Meghalaya, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, have rolled out their EV policy, some states are yet to implement the policy. The early implementation of state-level policy could assist in creating a larger ecosystem in the country that would help the industry to grow at a much faster pace according to SMEV. The state government policy should be focused on demand generation for the initial period that would help in getting more volumes on the road.
SMEV said that EV charging infrastructure has seen a rapid improvement with around 1,300 charging stations set up till now as many corporates have ventured into the segment and started installing charging stations across the country. It anticipates that in the next 5-6 years, we would be able to create robust charging infrastructure in the country.”
Financing EV has to attain more speed momentum and traction. The doubts have to evaporate and free will and intention should precede.
The battery costs too should fall and the resale value assessment and transaction once it happens will speed up EV adoption in a faster pace.
Yes banks have to come forward for 2 reasons the repayment capacity will increase due to direct saving on fuel costs..2. It will save foreign exchange on a.c. of reduced import 3 Pollution check.
So broader view and liberalized lending norms needed