The Road Ahead EV Adoption in India

A conversation on the state of electric vehicles in India and the challenges ahead.

Abhijeet Sinha is a technocrat and policy entrepreneur, currently working with tech pilots in the Prime Ministerial initiative on Ease of Doing Business (EoDB) as National Program Director. He is also the Project W, and holds additional charge as Project Director of (Jaipur – Delhi – Agra) Pilot Project. In an exclusive interview with Sanjay Singh, Managing Editor, Geospatial World, the National Program Director of EoDB talks about anchoring of geospatial technologies by EoDB, adoption of EVs in India, and the challenges ahead on the road to EVs.

Since the Ease of Doing Business (EoDB) is anchoring new technologies, how do you see the use of geospatial technologies and Space in the sustainable development of India?

You have started with a very important question not only for the technology sector, but also for the economy, as to how this adoption of technologies happens. As a piloting agency, we do pilot technologies, but when it comes to Ease of Doing Business, most of the readers relate to the World Bank ranking of the Ease of Doing Business in which we have been doing reasonably well. We have reached from 143 to 63 global ranking. In this journey we further aim to reach 50, which is a ranking enjoyed by Italy.

However, when you land in Italy – the type of handholding, felicitation, and comfort that you will see will be quite different from India — in adoption of technologies named by you just now.

The Ease of Doing Business is to make the landing of these emerging technologies in India smooth. Our role is to make available the infrastructure which are required to make the adoption of these technologies easy.

If you look at the economic history of India, we started with an agricultural economy in 1947 and then became a product economy, where manufacturing took a centerstage. In the last 20 years, we have been a technology-driven economy. The moot question is where we got stuck in delivering these technologies to common people — whether it is in the field of EVs, management of highways, traffic, fast tag, ambulances, or drones.

In a developing country like India, the problem of traffic jam, pollution, emissions, and net zero are profound.

The use of technologies is dependent upon adoption, the certification and complete solution, which comes from the government side as certification. Secondly, the confidence of financial sectors on these emerging technologies and thirdly, people adoption — how we wish to achieve and what we want to deliver. Common people are the end users and circular financing, or emerging financing models can be created out of it.

How can electric vehicles contribute to a more sustainable world?

If you look at electric vehicle technology being sustainable, we will have to keep the users at the center. It is not meant for the buyers or the EV companies or the charging companies. It is meant for people who will use it. Users will be comfortable when we give them comfort of using it.

Areas of concerns which need to be addressed are if someone goes out of the city with his/her EV, and his vehicle shuts down. Who will help him?

If somebody is setting up a charging station on highway, he would be more concerned about the profitability. Who’s going to come and get his vehicles charged so that the business is profitable.

If someone is buying an EV for lending it out to a fleet operator, what’s cost of the EV he will have to pay to run the vehicle. Is it going to be comparable with diesel or petrol vehicle or is it going to be a costly affair. People look at it as the price war between EVs and diesel and petrol vehicles. We try to maintain this balance.

The entire EV highway is geo-tagged, where assistance can be provided to customers in a very short period. It has charging station every 50 kms, which is equipped with roadside assistance.

Secondly, someone who’s willing to buy or invest in charging infrastructure can also have a guaranteed income and utilization so that their profitability and model for operation does not get hampered. These are some of the roadmaps that we can bring out with the help of emerging technologies and enjoy the confidence people, their finances, and their government.

Now, tell me how geospatial technologies are being used to locate suitable hotspots for charging points of electric vehicles?

Geospatial technologies are being used in multiple layers. On national highways, customers will get EVs without driver also. When we are providing these vehicles without drivers, there are multiple trackers and devices installed inside the vehicle to on and off continuously track the movement of vehicles through geospatial technologies. It also has active and passive trackers. In case of a theft, or if somebody escapes with the vehicle which he/she has not booked, the vehicle can be stopped through compulsive discharge.

Vehicle’s current location, how far it is from the next station. What type of fleets are there, what type of stations we are going to have, geo fencing of the highway e.t.c are the geospatial technologies that we are using for transition to EVs.

The best part is that a vehicle operator can give an EV on rent without any risk. And the people taking these vehicles on rent can compare it with diesel and petrol vehicles.

Does that mean that the locations of the charging stations are not determined using only semantic information, but by integrating spatial information with semantic information.

It is not only the 3-D mapping, but geo mapping of the entire highway is done. It is the micro level grid mapping of almost fourmeter square digital patches for the entire highways. These digital patches have information about toll plazas, their stations, important places like police stations, hospitals, fire stations, also if there is a commercial entity on the highway. The entire highway is geo-mapped and geo-fenced. The car, bus EVs or anybody travelling on this highway and is connected with certain devices inside the vehicle can meet each other technically.

What do you think is the biggest challenge facing electric vehicles adoption in India?

It depends upon how we are going to look at it. If we look at vehicle-to-vehicle comparison, we will end up comparing an electric vehicle with a diesel vehicle. If we look at as electric mobility as the cheapest and most reliable, we will end up comparing a Metro with Highway. Metro has a tube formation; it starts from a point and ends at point. It consumes electricity continuously from the overhead wire. Electric mobility or E-highways, wherever we can find a pattern, inside the city there can be a circular pattern of electric mobility running around.

I am not talking of overhead wire. What I am saying is that if the route is fixed. If we can give the approximate number of people who are travelling on a particular route to fleet operators. A business model can be developed by asking the fleet operator to come in rather than asking more and more people to buy EVs.

My plan is to make available electric mobility to people without even buying EV. This is what NHEV is doing — if you do not own a car, you can still hire a car. Go to Jaipur…go to Agra…you are highly tracked and monitored. Your safety is not a concern. Wherever you are moving, your safety is not a concern, we will take care of that.

Where do you think India stand visa-vis other nations in EV adoption?

It is very motivating at this stage of time that we have programmes like CUP 27 or Niti’s life mission which gives some insight not only from the commercial point of view, but from the lifestyle point of view that India is a leading nation by its ancient wisdom and its nature and origin to give an environment friendly and eco-friendly life to people, not only from West to wealth management, but also from the aspects of nature and environment, which is the core value of our ancient Vedic culture.

This brings us to a place where we will not only talk about it, but also need to have a proven model. If you do not have your cities which are very well managed in terms of traffic, pollution, emission, AQI and air quality, we cannot go out and say that India is in a leading position to tell the world as to how to live with nature.

Our economy has reached a point where we have two divides — if we manage to give our success story of how we resolved our problem, world will be after us. Five trillion or 10 trillion economy is just a number for us. This decade is India’s decade, this century is going to be India’s century. If we fail to manage the eco system where we have technologies and resources, lot of value creation done, but we could not retain, when it comes to delivery.

Technology is growing, but how do you make people accountable, discipline and make them aware about the technology is the basic challenge. We grow as community to use the best technologies to resolve our day-to-day problems.

As an economy we have reached on a delivery challenge. If we meet that challenge and deliver ourselves as a successive and progressive economy, we will be able to take not only electric mobility, but geospatial technologies including drones, 3-D and space forward and create success stories.

Where do you see India in EV adoption 10 years from now?

If we look at the eco systems, we will completely change the way we grow into EVs. If you look at retail products, we will only be able to forecast sales of EVs. If you look at railway stations, airports, cantonments, refineries, universities, or any premises which have several vehicles. These premises should be declared green, and they should use electrical vehicles inside the premises. The people who use EVs in such ways will gradually become part of electric mobility. These people can gradually think of adopting electric mobility by buying an EV of their own.

The onus must shift from individual to community. The responsibility lies with the communities like university, societies, and other organizations to provide green fuel to society. They have enough money to go for adoption.

In 2021, the global EV market achieved 108% growth in sales. The Net Zero by 2050 project predicts that by 2030, EVs will account for over 60% of new car sales. Do you think it is achievable?

I am not the right person to comment at the global level. However, India’s position in terms of percentage for adoption of electric mobility may look very promising because they are multifold, they may vary from 200% to 300%. But if you look at the area we need to cover, the numbers we need to do, globally we do not stand at a very significant position. We are not even at top 40 or 50 position, we are below that. And it is not because our numbers are less but have lot of work to do. Whenever we try to do something, it looks like little and too late. So, if you look at India’s strategy of adoption, we need to have a growth of 500%. That type of growth will help us in finding our position somewhere in the list.

Countries which have looked at it from the infrastructure perspective have an easy adoption, which is not the case with us. This is because of the low segment of vehicles and then our vehicles are low priced.

Interviewed by Sanjay Singh