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INTERVIEW
India upshifts e-mobility ambitions to top gear Now is the most opportune time to change the mobility landscape of the country. How to achieve the inflection point that is a precursor to exponential growth was discussed by Sohinder Gill, Director General - Society of Manufacturers of Electric Vehicles, in conversation with Ashok Thakur, Chief Editor – ETN. SMEV has been at the forefront of driving e-mobility in India. With the COVID-19 outbreak how do you foresee the EV market for the rest of this year for each EV segment? The impact of lockdown can be seen across all industries. With companies shutting down their manufacturing units, and supply chains becoming a challenge, it has impacted the market. We anticipated that the situation would normalize post lockdown, but unfortunately the cases have been increasing in the last few weeks. Though several companies have resumed operations, we feel that it will take another 2-3 months for things to become normal. The first six months of this financial year may give only 10-15 percent of the annual volume, but we hope to recover in the later six months. We will see increased demand, especially for personal vehicles, i.e. entry-level segment cars and two-wheelers.
Sohinder Gill
Speaking specifically of e-2Ws and e-4Ws in the personal segment: while there is increasing environment consciousness among buyers, which could further increase post COVID-19, do you think price still remains a challenge for these vehicles? The e-2Ws that have speeds between 25km/hr to 40 km/ hr use smaller batteries, which are now cheaper or priced similar to the petrol 2Ws. There can be an exponential growth of such 2Ws, if the government extends subsidy on them. For the high-speed high performance ones, I believe, until we are able to bridge the price gap that exists, the growth will be stunted. The subsidy component thus is an important piece in the growth of e-2Ws. Once we are able to make our local supply chain strong, and with battery prices coming down in the next few years, the issue of pricing will go away. At the IESA Earth Day webinar you emphasized that now is a good time for the government to promote a strong campaign to accelerate EVs in India. Can you elaborate on that idea and other measures that the government should support? In order to incentivize a quick adoption of EVs, the government should come up with some bold measures: for instance project EVs as a solution to a clean environment under the Swachh Bharat campaign. This would create massive awareness about the EVs and their benefit to the environment. Another means could be to instruct banks to finance EVs and reduce the customers’ burden of paying
| May-June 2020
the purchase cost upfront. Lastly, mandate delivery businesses to convert their fleets to electric, which will bring a huge volume of EVs into the market. In terms of e-4Ws in shared mobility segment or e-taxis, will the segment see a prolonged hit in terms of sale as COVID-19 related safety concerns remain a high deterrent for users? The segment of shared mobility, whether it's electric or ICE, would have to bear the brunt for a specific period as customers would prefer to travel in their personal vehicles till the situation normalizes. However, once we come out of the current pandemic, we will see e-taxis taking a leap in shared mobility due to lower operating cost. What were the e-2Ws and e-3Ws sales for the last financial year? What is your estimate for the current year? The EV industry sold 152,000 e-2Ws and reported sales of 90,000 e-3Ws, last financial year. The market for e-2Ws looks somewhat optimistic with a robust recovery in the second half of this year due to the surge in demand of personal vehicles as customers consider switching over from crowded mass transport to the sensibly priced e-2Ws at almost the same commuting cost as public transport. New innovative designs are emerging in e-3Ws to maintain social distancing and travel safely. Many companies are planning to expand product portfolios and align their businesses to accommodate customer preferences. We believe both e-2Ws and e-3Ws will see recovery in the second half of the year.
