CV MAKERS LOOKING AT SMARTER, CLEANERTECHNOLOGY OPTIONS

India's ttuckand bus makers are now seriously looking at cleaner mobility solutions, despite the obvious challenges, write Amit Vijay Mand T ENarasimhan.

Sometimes it takes a bit longer territory. It may be a clean shot or a misadventure, depending on which side you are. In a similar scenario, for years, India’s truck and bus ecosystem has been looking for definitive answers on how to get on track with the Government of India’s push for clean mobility programmes.

Since the first commercial e-bus operations started operations in Himachal Pradesh, in September 2017, India’s electric bus market has evolved substantially over the last five years, with close to 1,031 e-buses deployed in FY21 which grew to 1,850 e-buses by the end of FY22 and 3,000 or so buses deployed in fiscal 2023.

As against an OEM order book of 7,000 odd electric buses by state governments, with deliveries less than half clearly shows the current scale of deployment that needs to be ramped up soon.

States like Maharashtra, Delhi, and Gujarat have been at the forefront of electric bus adoption with the two most significant bus orders from the Government of India-sponsored Convergence Energy Services Limited CESL) maiden 5,450 e-buses across five cities: Bengaluru, Delhi, Hyderabad, Kolkata, and Surat. The first order was won by Tata Motors in all the categories. In the second one 3,650 buses, six OEMs have bid and are in a race to bag the same.

While the electric bus market has shown steady growth in numeric terms, it is less than 1 percent of India’s medium and heavy vehicles market which was pegged at around 241 thousand units at the end of the fiscal year 2022.

According to analysts, the core reason lies in the limited availability of EV finance and other challenges that crop up on the way.

This issue becomes even more significant as the Centre is looking to replace 30,000 diesel buses with electric buses in the next two-three years. This means there's at least 3.5 billion in business opportunities for manufacturers.