Electric Vehicles: The Future of Mobility

In this article, Rudhi Sundar Pradhan highlights the fact that the recent shift in global automotive technology and an increasing uptake in electric vehicles (EVs) is likely to pose a challenge to the existing automotive market if the country does not plan its transition towards newer mobility solutions and develop the required manufacturing competencies and infrastructure to uplift the market.

- Rudhi Sundar Pradhan

Industrialization and developing economy are hard pressing on the rising levels of air pollution, particularly in our metropolitan cities. To add to the woes, energy security is also of major concern. Electric vehicles (EVs) emerge as the way to combat the ill effects of bad air that we breathe, and also to subdue the concern of energy security. The global automotive industry is at the tip of paradigm shift from internal combustion engines (ICEs) to zero emission EVs. India has announced to shift all the fleet to EVs by 2030. The government has expressed intent to push manufacturers to get into mass manufacturing of EVs to reduce dependence on imported fuel and control environmental pollution.

Drivers for India’s Electric Mobility Initiatives

Energy security

India’s crude oil imports have risen exponentially and the demand for oil grew by 5.1 per cent in 2016, higher than world’s largest net importers, the US (0.7 per cent) and China (2.9 per cent). India’s crude oil deficits stood at $52 billion in 2017 and accounted for almost 50 per cent of the total trade deficit of $109 billion.

Pollution levels

India ranks as the third-largest carbonemitting country in the world accounting for 7 per cent of the global carbon dioxide emissions from fuel combustion. According to the Greenpeace and AirVisual analysis, 22 out of the 30 most polluted cities of the world are in India.

Changing Trends in Global Automotive Market