Experts predict increased localisation of electric vehicles in 3-4 years
Vinayak estimates that around 5,000-10,000 charging stations are needed in a city like Bengaluru. He explains that there are roughly 70,000 petrol stations all over India and in a city like Bengaluru there are probably around 300-400 petrol stations.
Incentive programs for the electric vehicle (EV) industry have been waived off globally and in 3-4 years the Indian industry will see good demand and an increase in localisation.
Shamsher Dewan, senior vice president of corporate ratings at ICRA, in an interview with CNBC-TV18, said, “Our estimates for 2030 are without the subsidies continuing for a fairly long time."
"We believe that these numbers that we have put out for penetration across various segments factor in that after 3-4 years the industry will be in a position wherein the economies of scale plus localisation factors will drive economic viability on its own. So at that point in time there won’t be a requirement for demand incentives to continue any longer," Dewan added.
Arun Vinayak, co-founder of Exponent Energy, during the same interview with CNBC-TV18, added that we now need to appropriately start incentivising charging stations to serve electric vehicles (EVs) and not become a bottleneck for the projections that we are looking at for EVs.
"Not every vehicle is eligible for fame, there is a localisation need, and there is also a performance and quality need which needs to be met to be eligible for FAME.
Similarly, not every charging station deserves a subsidy. So we need to ensure that the charging stations that are being incentivised are doing more good than harm. They are delivering reliability and safety and they are able to cater to segments that really need public charging," he said.
Vinayak estimates that around 5,000-10,000 charging stations are needed in a city like Bengaluru. He explains that there are roughly 70,000 petrol stations all over India and in a city like Bengaluru there are probably around 300-400 petrol stations.
"So when we go electric we need around 4,000 to 10,000 charging stations if we talk of fast and rapid charging. Slow charging is really not an option anymore as we go into the future.
Also, the cost of slow charging on a per-unit basis is very high. So the entire industry is definitely starting to think about fast and rapid charging. So you are probably going to have 20 times the petrol stations that we have today when you talk about the density of charging stations,” Vinayak added.
He also believes that the FAME subsidy has made many OEMs lazy because you have a capacity-linked incentive. "So you can just put a large battery and get away with it because the government is paying for it. There is no pressure to innovate and find more efficiency in the vehicle or find more innovative solutions.
So I think we should move away from demand-linked incentives to production-linked incentives, financing incentives or even charging station-based incentives. This will allow the entire ecosystem to find more innovative solutions and we want to play a role in that."
(Edited by : Vivek Dubey)
First Published: Aug 1, 2023 9:27 PM IST
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