At IIT-Delhi fest discussion on electric vehicles

“The government is committed to going fully electric… The Delhi government subsidy is very progressive. I personally feel that petrol and diesel cars will be found in museums in the next 10-15 years’ time. There’ll be no petrol and diesel cars on the road… The mainstay fuel today will become alternate fuel tomorrow… Every week the cost of fuel is going up. The government is doing its best; we can do better,” Goyal said in a panel discussion at IIT Delhi’s annual science & technology fest called ‘Tryst’.He also said in the future “government can make more policies for public transport to go fully electric”.

Jenender Anand, Chief Executive Officer of Revolt Motors which makes e-motorbikes, said, “Government has given subsidies which is almost 20-25% of the vehicle cost. So you can imagine without that subsidy, the initial cost of ownership would be on the higher side…Government has given a limited time frame for that subsidy, so that there is no clarity after this financial year or after x number of units being sold, is the government going to support or not? When we speak to Niti Aayog or other government forums, we don’t get clarity from them. The speculation or understanding is going to increase it by two years or five years, till the industry becomes self-sustainable.”

Ramesh Dorairajan, Senior GM of Tata Motors, said going forward financing for EVs could be an issue as banks were not very willing to give out loans. “Government has played a big role in people adopting EV technology and the government needs to continue to play this role… We’ve been watching in the four wheeler space that state governments do provide demand subsidy but it may not be sustainable always… But wherever it has been given, it has given a boost and fillip to the EV industry,” he said.

He said the government could also play more of a role in the setting up of charging infrastructure. “They’ve done a lot, provided lots of support but we need more and more players to come and put up chargers,” said Dorairajan.

Alok Ranjan, CMO of Vedanta Aluminium which supplies to many EV companies, said they did not want subsidies. All we ask for is a level playing field… Our ask from the government is very simple. We don’t want any favours, we don’t want any subsidies. We only want a level playing field so that we can compete with the world. If I talk about aluminum, even today 60% of India’s aluminum consumption is met through imports. So that should change. We are endowed with plenty of resources, we just need to put the right structure in place,” he said.

Ranjan also said there should be more incentive for investors, as people were “still iffy if they should invest in EVs or not”.

Pratik Gupta, Founder of Storm Motor, said, “In 20 years, we might see climate change coming to our shores. It’s really time we take matters in our own hand.”