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India is aiming for all cars to be electric as soon as 2030

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India’s Power Minister Piyush Goyal recently announced plans for an interesting program that could see the nation’s whole car fleet becoming 100% electric by 2030. It represents one of the most ambitious goal for the electrification of transport in a large country.

The program would let people buy electric vehicles with zero down payment financed by the state and drivers can then pay for the vehicle at the rate they are saving on gas.

Piyush Goyal recently said at an event via India Times:

“India can become the first country of its size which will run 100 per cent of electric vehicles. We are trying to make this programme self financing. We don’t need one rupee support from the government. We don’t need one rupee investment from the people of India.”

The minister added:

“We are working (on the scheme). Can we actually give electric car for free (zero down payment) and people can pay for that out of the savings on the petroleum products. Innovation is possible, it just needs an open mind. You need to think of scale and be honest.

The government established a working group with Road Minister Nitin Gadkari, Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan and Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar. They will meet next week to evaluate ways to implement the program.

India is the third largest automotive market in Asia and a lot like China, which is the largest, they are starting to experience the consequences of the pollution brought by their fast growing industrial economy. But unlike China, India has yet to implement policies to encourage the sale of electric vehicles to try to reduce pollution from transport. The scheme could help Indians get access to increasingly popular small electric vehicles in the country, like the Mahindra e2o – see picture above.

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Comments

  1. freedomev - 8 years ago

    Just where will they charge them at? India’s grid can’t handle 25% of the population’s regular needs much less adding EV’s to it. The solution is selling solar, wind systems along with EV’s.
    In 10 yrs both will be cheaper than a gas car and the EV will be part of the home, business power system adding value and giving stable reliable ower, unlike their grid.
    And solar/batteries are much cheaper than the generators they use now at about $1/kwhr, payback is in less than a yr.

  2. Paul Van Obberghen - 8 years ago

    2030 is certainly unrealistic (it’s in less than 14 years. That’s 9/11 backward from today), especialy in a country that large, where infrastructure can’t today digest the existing amount of vehicules. They would be well advized to heavily invest in 21st century public transportations.
    This being said, I believe The European Union should issue an initiative like that: let’s say by 2020 all _new_ road vehicules must be hybrid and by 2030, they must be all electrical. By 2040, all road vehicules with internal combustion engine would be banned.
    Yet this wont solve the most important problem with road vehicules which is saturation of the cities and their access. Even if all these vehicules are to be electric, the polution sure will be much less, but cities will remain saturated with permanent traffic jams.
    And it wouldn’t solve another important issue, which is the starvation of natural resources to produce all these vehicules. This is especially true for the component for batteries like lithium which will rapidely be exhausted at the rate at which batteries are produced.
    The only solution for this is less car on the roads. Much less. This means shared fully autonomous EV, and significant development of public transportation.

    • Banning internal combustions engines is not going to happen any time soon unless Europe wants to cripple its economy. Especially for long haul commercial/industrial applications. Unless there is some kind of magic breakthrough in energy storage liquid fuels are going to be with us for probably another few centuries.

      • Zone g - 8 years ago

        Centuries? Oil will be gone in decades.

  3. This is an extremely unrealistic goal given all of the other challenges India faces.

  4. MorinMoss - 8 years ago

    While I think India is overreaching, I applaud them for trying. We’re not going to solve the world’s crises by only thinking small.
    1.5 yrs ago, India raised the 2020 target for solar from 20 GW to 100 GW!! Do I think they’ll achieve it?
    Probably not but I’m sure they’ll far exceed the previous target. and I’m curious to see how this EV initiative will play out.

  5. JC - 8 years ago

    http://reneweconomy.com.au/2016/72376

    Norway has similar plans by 2025

  6. You’re on some good drugs if you think oil will be gone in decades.

  7. Easwar - 8 years ago

    Yes. We need to be innovative.
    Stop the negative thinking.(othets comments).
    Let’s set an example
    I am for it.

  8. Kevin Dunbar - 8 years ago

    Last year former Prime Minister of Canada, Stephen Harper announced with much fanfare that Canada would be fossil fuel free by 2100. Sorry but I laughed aloud. As if we will be using coal to run our levitrons….

    Who would have thought just a few years ago that we would be doing video calls on our phones, checking the temperature of our homes from the other side of the planet? We can’t really imagine the shit that’s going to happen and quickly. Hopefully it will be amazing. So India driving exclusively electric cars in a few years? Wouldn’t surprise me if it was light years beyond that. Alternately don’t be surprised if you’re too busy tredding water to notice.

    • MorinMoss - 8 years ago

      We could very well still be fossil-fuel dependent in the 22nd century but it’ll probably be because humanity is liiving in Mad Max’s world.

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