Electric mobility is considered as the future of mobility, especially for India which remains a big importer of fossil fuels. The Indian automobile manufacturing has also developed local manufacturing ecosystem of components making low cost vehicles with significant and increasing export contribution. This globally competitive sector should be further supported to ride on the global transition to EVs which is expected to see 50% of all vehicle sales to be electric by 2030. However, due to the nascence in technology, high cost of batteries remains an impediment for adoption of EVs as they are available at much higher cost as compared to the fossil fuel variants. Batteries comprise almost 50% of the vehicle cost.
The state support for the promotions of EVs has also grown with National Electric Mobility Mission Plan (NEMMP), Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Electric Vehicles (FAME) and other policies which target financial support for the vehicle manufacturer and consumers for increasing penetration. A part of the proposed new policy also factors in support for developing manufacturing base of EVs in India.
As the cost of batteries / storage has been identified as the key challenge in higher penetration of electric mobility, the primary outcome of the project is to identify plausible policy options for the government to reduce the cost of batteries for the e-mobility. The study will focus on the domestic battery ecosystem to provide the optimum package of policy instruments with respect to existing frameworks, the capability and financial capacity of the country, in line with above mentioned typology.