Govt plugs in electric vehicles, but will the charge last?

The push The Centre has decided to offer a direct subsidy of around Rs 1.4 lakh for each electric car, while extending benefits to those purchasing other electric vehicles too. The subsidy may be as high as Rs 4 lakh for high-end electric cars, some of which are not on Indian roads. The government on Friday approved a subsidy of Rs 5,500 crore — for all electric vehicles, including passenger cars — as part of an updated policy, called Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of (Hybrid and) Electric Vehicles (FAME-II), that would be in place for the next five years. The FAME-I policy, announced in 2015, had an initial corpus of Rs 75 crore. This follows the ministry of power's recent notice clarifying that charging stations do not require the same licences as discoms do. It said charging station convert electric energy to chemical energy (battery), and thus no sale or distribution of electricity was occurring. Various states, too, have their own policies. Karnataka last year launched an EV policy that, among other incentives, provides interest-free loan of over Rs 1,000 crore for large companies setting up facilities in the state. The Maharashtra cabinet recently approved a policy that provides 15% subsidy to the owners of the first 100,000 EVs. Telangana, Andhra and Gujarat, too, have their policies, while Delhi and UP have plans to buy electric buses. The pushback EESL, the PSU, has an agreement with Tata Motors and M&M to acquire 10,000 electric cars to be distributed across government departments. But after complaints of poor mileage on a single charge and rapid discharge of batteries, EESL had to consider sending a show-cause notice to Tata (Tata delivered the first batch of 5,000 cars). By end of FY17, India sold about 25,000 electric vehicles, but most of these are two- and three-wheelers. This and the cost of making an electric car were among the reasons Maruti Suzuki was sceptical of the policy initially — the company has since tiptoed into territory with plans to set up a Lithium-ion battery plant in Gujarat with the help of Toshiba and Denso. Also, the Li-ion market has a unique challenge: It is in China's grasp, with its companies controlling almost all the metals required for its manufacture.