Analyse the challenges involved in transition to Electronic Vehicles (EVs) in India. Suggest policy measures for the government to ensure smooth EV adoption.
Refer - The Hindu
IAS Parliament 7 years
KEY POINTS
Union government has set an ambitious Electric vehicles (EVs) sales ratio target of 40% in 2032 with almost 100% in commercial applications.
Challenges
· EV transition requires Huge Investments to propel.
· Designing Batteries which is capable to store more amounts of energy and at the same time to be very less in size and weight.
· Developing charging infrastructures across all type of roads.
· Policy frameworks to boost production of batteries and recycling of the minerals used in batteries for reuse.
· Affording a huge subsidy to make EVs popular among people will cause huge economic burden.
· Huge investments already made in oil refineries sector will questions the economy.
· Tackling revenue losses for government due to shifting petrol, diesel regime to EV regime.
Suggestion
· Technology transfer and joint ventures have to be encouraged to ensure indigenization of technology.
· Localization is crucial to avoid replacement of an oil import bill with a battery import bill.
· Brought in PPP models in order to develop charging infrastructure.
· Strict deadlines for phasing out conventional internal combustion engines (ICEs)
· Study International EV models to develop India specific vehicles.
· Support Indian auto ancillaries’ moves towards making EV components in order to reduce job losses.
· Support initiatives in order to develop products, testing infrastructure and also to re-skill the workforce in this area.
· India does not have any lithium deposits, with Chile, China, Argentina and Australia heading the list of countries with the largest lithium reserves in the world.
· This will simply switches political dependency from the Gulf States to China.
· India has to find alternative resources in order to power electric vehicles. For instance, Stanford University has created an aluminium battery that could slash charging times such that a car could be fully charged in minutes.
