Consumer Affairs Minister Piyush Goyal on Tuesday, January 3, held a meeting with stakeholders in the EV industry to decide on a common form, shape, size of the battery, and work towards finalising the draft battery-swapping policy. According to sources, the conference reached the conclusion that more stakeholder consultations are necessary before a definitive decision can be made about battery swapping standards.
The shape, size, and form of the battery are now a major bone of contention for the industry, therefore the government is seeking to persuade industry players to agree on a standard for electric vehicles as it develops norms for its proposed battery-swapping policy.
The battery-swapping policy was first proposed by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in the budget one year ago, but we have not yet seen the final draft since discussions are still ongoing.
Chetan Maini, Co-Founder and Chairman of Sun Mobility, brought up a few points in an interview with CNBC-TV18 while discussing the delay in the final draft.
"Niti Aayog in April 2022 released a draft policy which was very positive – it talked about minimum technical requirements, direct and indirect financial support, reuse and use, how to treat innovation and business models etc," he informed.
"It also talked about additional standards and specifications for battery’s and battery pack dimensions but I think that would come over a period of time after adequate industry consultation."
"So I think it is the last point which has caused the biggest issue. On the other parts of the policy there is fair amount of clarity but around the standards and size there are lot of challenges within the industry as the industry has been doing this for a while and there hasn’t been a consensus around that. So that has what has caused the delay but the rest of the policy is fairly clear,” Maini said.
Watch full interview for more
