Clean charging should herald India’s EV drive
Our policies aim to enable the proliferation of electric vehicles, as they should, but we also need innovative plans to ensure that we rely mostly on clean energy sources to charge them
India’s new electric vehicle (EV) import policy will turn the local EV market more vibrant at the upper end, no doubt, especially if Tesla were to make its domestic debut, but we also need to work on a plan to ensure EVs use clean power to charge their batteries. This aspect, however, seems to be getting much less attention than is due. Our current policy focus appears set on getting EV adoption to accelerate. Sure, electrifying vehicles does keep the noxious fumes of fossilfuel combustion off the streets, but it is also energy intensive. Since much of India’s gridlinked generation of electricity is done by burning coal to boil water and steam-drive turbines, the broader goal of our green transition would be lost if an EV boom results in vehicular power consumption outpacing our ramp-up of renewable capacity, as that would add up to even greater carbon emissions overall. Getting car buyers to go electric is just one part of the endeavour.
Under the government’s latest EV policy revision, foreign auto-makers can import up to 8,000 EVs valued above $35,000 apiece annually for five years at a sharply lowered 15% tariff for sale in the country, provided they commit to investing $500 million in setting up a manufacturing base here and raising localization levels to 50% by the end of that period. The attempt is to grant global EV makers such as Tesla a quick pathway into our market without upsetting a long-established auto-sector policy that insists on cars either being made locally or paying steep duties for market access. While a conditional easing of import duty may not be exactly what Tesla was seeking, it seems good enough to attract a swift test launch even as it goes about prospect-scouting in the country.
Given the high profile of Elon Musk’s EV marque, its entry would also act as a signal to the world of India being a hot ‘China plus one’ choice for rolling products off assembly lines. If high-end EVs start being made in India, it would be a win for the country’s image as a manufacturing hub. The creation of supply chains could spark action across price slabs and add frisson to our EV market on the whole. How globally competitive these vehicles turn out will depend on how the idea shapes up. So far, car-making in India has had high tariff protection, rendering local products overpriced. The duty drop marks a chance for a break.
India must not lose sight of the charging challenge, though. While our renewable scale-up may look good on paper, clean power sources still feed our grid too weakly for comfort, with the risk that EV proliferation may worsen rather than relieve climate change. Opting for a huge bump-up in nuclear power would be fraught with other complexities. A safer solution might be to set up vast car parks equipped with solar panels to charge EVs during the day that could be used as power storage devices to run other appliances once driven home and plugged in at night. Much depends on advances in power-pack and solar cell technology. Vehicles with rooftop panels, for example, could work if solar capture gets better. Whatever approach is taken, much toplevel policy planning would have to go into it. The key is to coordinate every aspect of the energy transition that we aim to make on our way to carbon neutrality. India’s target of 2070 may seem distant, but early-stage commitments matter hugely. As the buzz around EVs grows, let’s ensure we don’t end up shifting emissions from our streets to power plants.