India Electric Vehicle (EV) Market - Growth, Trends, COVID-19 Impact, and Forecasts (2021 - 2026)

India is the second most populated country in the world after China, and just like China, which has the largest electric bus fleet in the world, India is also pushing hard for the electrification of buses. Many state governments have already started the procurement of electric buses from Chinese and local electric bus manufacturers

In 2018, The Ministry of Urban Development launched the Green Urban Transport Scheme (GUTS) for reducing emissions from public transport vehicles in the country. The ministry has also proposed an INR 250 billion grant for turning the public transport electric.

In another instance in February 2020, Union transport minister inaugurated India's first inter-city electric bus service, these buses are manufactured by Mitra Mobility Solution which has the range of 300 km on a full charge.

Many local bus manufacturers are in collaboration with some Chinese manufacturers are trying to catch the rising demand of the electric buses in India. For Instance,

• In 2019, Foton PMI announced that it was planning to invest around INR 500 crore on a joint venture with Beiqi Foton Motor Co. of China to manufacture electric buses in India. The company has already given five electric buses to one of the airlines for internal operations

The government's focus is to introduce the electric vehicles in public transportation due to which in 2016, the policy Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH), The Government of India introduced a policy for e-rickshaws. It provides provisions for e-rickshaws, to promote the low cost and zero-pollution urban mobility. In addition to that, various state governments have their laws for three-wheelers.

To support the green revolution in India, Amazon plans to deploy 10,000 electric rickshaws for delivery across the country. The e-rickshaws would be procured from electric vehicle startup Rivian and are supposed to be operational across 20 cities by 2025. Similarly, in 2018 Ola announced that it would add 10,000 electric rickshaws to its fleet in India over the next one year. It is their plan, called Mission: Electric is part of its ambitious project to put one million electric vehicles on the road by 2021.

India has around 1.5 million e-rickshaws, and about 11,000 new e-rickshaws rolls into the road every month. These e-rickshaws are more prevalent in states like Delhi, Punjab, UP, Uttarakhand, West Bengal, Bihar, and Haryana.