The Motor Vehicles Department (MVD) has opened registration for electric autorickshaws (e-autos) in Kochi, with a dozen vehicles registering at the Ernakulam Regional Transport Office.
The increasing price of petrol and diesel, high operational expense sand the State government policy against issuing fresh permits to autorickshaws that run on fossil fuel in cities have resulted in drivers showing a marked preference for CNG and e-autos in the city.
“The 12 e-autos that were recently registered belong to different brands. More are expected to follow suit in the coming days. The government has accorded priority to them, since those that run on fossil fuels are choking cities with high air and sound pollution,” said a senior official at Ernakulam RTO.
This is a transition period from fossil fuel to cleaner energy modes. Under the electric vehicle policy, the government aimed to roll out 50,000 electricity-powered three-wheelers by 2022, he added.
Most of the e-autos purchased by individual drivers have begun operating in the city following relaxation of lockdown norms. A dozen e-autos began operating here from prominent metro stations as a pilot initiative over two years ago. The COVID-19 lockdown resulted in a bulk of the 250 e-autos not arriving from different States. They were to be operated under the banner of Ernakulam Jilla Autorickshaw Thozhilali Sahakara Sangam, a collective of different autorickshaw drivers’ trade unions. “We are in no hurry to introduce them, since patronage for public transport has to pick up following COVID-19 scare. They will begin operating when the metro resumes service, since these vehicles are primarily aimed at operating in feeder routes from metro stations,” said an office bearer of the collective.
About half a dozen manufacturers had made presentations before representatives of the body earlier this year. A decision on procurement is suffering delay due to the lockdown, it is learnt. Kinetic Green, which rolled out the pilot fleet of e-autos in Kochi, is seen as a forerunner since it roped in experts from IIT-Madras and tied up with BPCL to ready a battery-swap system at fuel stations.
Former Senior Deputy Road Transport Commissioner B.J. Antony said readying adequate number of battery-swap facilities (in which drained out batteries can be replaced with fully-charged ones) and recharging points would catalyse the introduction of e-autos in Kochi. “Battery-swap stations are one step ahead, since the battery cost works out to about half the price of an e-auto,” he said
The State’s policy calls upon government agencies and civic bodies to ready charging infrastructure wherever possible, to lessen operational cost of vehicles. In addition, there is a cap of ₹5.50 that electricity providers can levy on recharging points of electric vehicles. All this would lessen the operational cost of e-autos. Conventional charging can be done from 16-ampere plug points, available in most homes. There were faster charging modes, which came for a higher cost, he added.