Week 44 (Oct 25 - 31)
In this week's recap - Telangana launched its EV Policy, E-com to drive electrification in 3Ws, 3000+ EVs registered in Delhi, Chandigarh floats tender for buses and AP/Telangana woo EV manufacturers.
Telangana formally launched its EV Policy. The state unveiled the final EV policy to promote usage, ownership and manufacturing of EVs through a number of supply side and demand incentives. In August the state had approved the policy.
E-commerce driving electrification of three-wheelers: Kinetic Green. Rising demand for last-mile deliveries by e-commerce companies is driving demand for two-wheelers, three-wheelers and smaller LCVs. Currently, close to 6.5 lakh vehicles are in use in this segment. But this is expected to shift largely to three- and four-wheelers as more packages are being delivered during the pandemic. Three-wheelers and four-wheeler LCVs with payload of up to 1.3 tonne are expected to dominate last-mile delivery in the country, with three-wheelers being preferred for the 400 kg to 600 kg payload.
Over 3,000 electric vehicles registered in Delhi Since the launch of the government’s new EV policy, over 3,000 electric vehicles have been registered in the capital. The policy is very inclusive and encourages the purchase of EVs through demand-incentives, waiving of registration fees & road tax. This should help reduce pollution in Delhi to a great extent as it seeks to replace diesel-petrol vehicles with electric vehicles on the roads of Delhi, however, there are suggestions that it alone may not be enough.
Renault Zoe EV hatchback spotted in India. After showcasing Zoe, Europe’s most popular EV, at the Indian Auto Expo 2020, Renault was seen testing a pre-facelift model on the streets of Tamil Nadu. While the new model comes with a 52Kwh battery back, the one testing has a 41Kwh - still enough to give a range of 300 km on a single charge. As far as the charging capabilities are concerned, the Renault Zoe EV can get up to 80% charge from a 43kW charger in 1 hour and 40 minutes. While this is not the first time that a test car has been spotted in India, its repeated sighting makes us wonder if Renault might be considering the electric vehicle for the Indian market. We are expecting premium pricing given that its length is 4.08m despite being a hatchback.
Bajaj Auto plans a dedicated production plant for electric scooter chetak. As per a report by Livemint, Bajaj Auto Ltd is planning to set up a dedicated production plant for its electric scooter Chetak and Delhi, Bangalore & Hyderabad are key locations that are being evaluated. These states have favorable demand or supply policies that will accelerate the deployment of EVs. Bajaj Auto had launched electric Chetak in January earlier this year with a starting price of ₹1 lakh. The EV was launched only in Pune and Bangalore. Later supply chain disruptions from China had hit Chetak’s production and the company had to stop the production as well as bookings of the model. Later bookings were resumed in July.
Chandigarh begins process to procure electric buses After getting an approval for 80 ebuses under the FAME II scheme, Chandigarh government will float a fresh tender for the purchase of the buses soon. Last year, the Administration had floated tenders for the purchase of the 40 electric buses in January, but had to suspend it due to the Covid-19 pandemic. At present, the CTU has 514 buses — 361 buses run on local or suburban routes and 153 buses run on inter-state routes. The procurement of the buses will give a major boost to the plan of the UT Administration to replace its entire fleet of ordinary buses of the Chandigarh Transport Undertaking (CTU) with electric buses.
EV manufacturers eye Telangana & Andhra Pradesh as Southern bases Telangana & AP are becoming preferred investment destinations for electric vehicle (EV) manufacturers that are looking to set up a greenfield facility outside their home state and as their core base in the south. Companies like Gemopai, Evolet, BGauss, Lamborghini, Tesla, and Kinetic Green are looking to expand there given a proactive government with industry-friendly policies, customers who are keen to adopt green mobility & embrace new technologies, and the State’s centralized location connecting key markets of the country.
Delhi Govt planning to build effective EV infrastructure With just 70 charging stations in Delhi the government is targeting an aggressive number of EV registrations by 2024 through a speedy rollout of Electric Vehicle charging Infrastructure in Delhi. As such the Transport Minister conducted a second round of meeting with the various nodal agencies to discuss the status of identification of potential land sites owned by government departments or agencies for setting up EV charging infrastructure in the city.
The following two points were agreed
For the installation of EV charging stations, a centralized tendering system will be adopted to hire an energy operator to run, maintain and upgrade charging stations.
The land-owning agencies will be required to provide land for the installation of public EV charging stations and a final list of locations would be identified.
Other interesting global news
China plans to phase out conventional gas-burning cars by 2035
China's NEV sales to account for 20% of new car sales by 2025, 50% by 2035
Geely's new EV plant will build premium Polestar cars by Reuters
Tesla to recall 30,000 cars from China over suspension defects by ET
New battery tech can charge electric cars up to 90% in 6 minutes
Tesla announces $12 billion investment for EV and battery in just 2 years
Electric-car mania turns Asian battery makers into power brokers
Europe's lack of charging points threatens deployment of EVs - ACEA