The lack of infrastructure brings many other challenges as well. One of them is the theft of electricity by consumers. There are about 2 million electric two-wheelers and e-rickshaws in India. Due to the absence of charging stations and expensive power, many consumers use unethical means such as theft for charging their vehicles. In Delhi alone, the theft due to the charging of EV vehicle is estimated to be more than 20 million dollars per year. Most of the Indian Discom companies are already struggling to keep their losses minimum and achieve the targets set under the UDAY scheme. If this trend continues to grow, this may give an extra financial burden and create an imbalance for the Discoms which will eventually be the liability of the state and central government as we have seen before UDAY.
The new subsidy program by the government of $1.4 billion may sound very promising but there may exist a flaw. Out of the total subsidy amount, only 10% is allocated for building the infrastructure to set up charging stations. This amount may not be sufficient considering the scale of the market and the consumer size in India.
On an average, EV vehicles run about 80-100 KMs in one full charge which may resist consumers from investing money. Also, Battery life and charging time may also act as a perspective challenge for the consumers. Therefore, the government, as well as the car manufacturers, need to substantially invest in research and development in order to improve the battery life as well as reduce charging time for the vehicles.
The future of the automobile industry is supported by numerous factors such as the availability of skilled labor at low cost and low-cost steel production. The industry has great potential for investment and creates direct and indirect employment to skilled and unskilled labor as well. Though the idea of the electric vehicle market appears very fascinating in the Indian context, but it is definitely not a smooth road to achieve!
Comments
Harshit Agrawal
An enthusiast in Marketing and Analytics. Pursuing MBA from IIT Kanpur.
Well described
23 Jul 2019, 09.42 PM
Neha Malhotra
Very well put.
23 Jul 2019, 09.46 PM
Vaishali Jain
Very well written
23 Jul 2019, 10.54 PM
Megha Arora
Well written!
23 Jul 2019, 10.56 PM
Dashmeet Rana
Company secretary by profession
Wonderfully written!
23 Jul 2019, 11.05 PM
Shweta Gupta
Excellent article
24 Jul 2019, 08.00 AM
Shivinder Singh
The author has clearly demystified the fog on this subject. Job well done.
24 Jul 2019, 02.01 PM
Anshul Shah
I am Currently pursuing MBA from IIT Kanpur, Worked as ORMB Developer at Infosys from 2017-2019. I did my BE in Information Technology From IET DAVV. I like Singing, Swimming, Playing Badminton, Playing Chess.
Nicely explained the barriers for EV in India.
24 Jul 2019, 03.53 PM