Time for India to move into top gear with an eye on 2030 EV public infra goal

NEW DELHI: As reports surfaced about tech billionaire Elon Musk arriving in India next week to announce a Tesla manufacturing unit in Gujarat (although no official confirmation has come yet), the focus has once again shifted to ramp up the public infrastructure for electric vehicles (EVs) in the country in order to meet the ambitious 2030 goal of the government.

India needs to have a robust backbone for charging infrastructure across the length and breadth of the country with considerations of traffic and population density, as it aims to break the barriers for large-scale adoption of electric vehicles. India’s top nine cities, with a population of over 40 lakh each, would require 18,000 public EV charging stations by 2030, according to the recent government data.

“As per inputs received from the Ministry of Power, preliminary studies conducted for the nine cities, which include Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Ahmedabad, Surat, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, and Kolkata, all with a population of over 4 million, indicate a requirement of 18,000 public EV charging stations by 2030,” according to Mahendra Nath Pandey, Union Minister of Heavy Industries.

Currently, more than 9,000 public EV charging stations are operational in the country with over 16,000 EV chargers.

India may need a minimum of 1.32 million charging stations by 2030 to facilitate the rapid adoption of electric vehicles (EVs), according to a recent report released by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

It is projected that approximately 106 million EVs will be sold every year by 2030. To ensure an ideal ratio of 1 charger for every 40 electric vehicles, India will need to install over 4,00,000 charging stations annually, with a cumulative total of 1.32 million chargers by the targeted year, according to the CII report.

“The government has set the ball rolling on accelerated adoption of EVs, aiming to achieve sales penetration of 30 per cent for private cars, 70 per cent for commercial vehicles, and 80 per cent for two and three-wheelers by 2030. The foundation for this will be laid by the creation of robust charging infrastructure,” said Vipin Sondhi, Chairperson – CII National Committee on Future Mobility (2022-23) and former CEO and MD, Ashok Leyland and JCB.

“This presents a huge opportunity for India and the domestic industry”, Sondhi added, calling for a conducive policy environment to enable startups, MSMEs and large companies to rapidly roll out charging infrastructure across the country. (IANS)

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