India To Electrify All 150cc And Under Petrol Two-Wheelers?

In the past few days, the Indian government’s think tank committee has submitted a drastic proposal to curb two-wheeler pollution and reduce dependency on fossil fuels. This includes completely electrifying all new two-wheelers and three-wheelers sold in India by 2025 and 2023, respectively. To put things into perspective, India sold 21 million two-wheelers in the last financial year alone. In comparison, only 1,26,000 EVs were sold in the same period.

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So, a complete ban of over millions of petrol-powered two-wheelers over a period of just six years sounds err… ridiculous, right? Because it is. Now, it is important to note that this is merely a proposal. The government hasn’t showcased any intentions of actually putting it into action, let alone enforce it. And while we do advocate for reducing pollution and dependency on fossil fuels, the proposed timeline to make this happen looks nigh on impossible to achieve.

Out of the aforementioned 21 million two-wheelers, around 20 million of them (going by online reports) fall under the 150cc and below category. Now, imagine replacing all of them with EVs. That isn’t even the scary part. You see, a major part of electricity is produced via coal. Producing enough electricity for millions of two-wheelers could badly harm the environment, which goes against the whole green, clean, electric thing, right?

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Then there are the limitations of charging infrastructure. Or, lack thereof. While companies like Kymco and Ather are in the process of setting up their own infrastructure, there needs to be a bigger initiative from the government’s side.

The modern-day lithium-ion battery is dependant on lithium, which is majorly found in China. Hence, there is a risk of being dependent on another country as we are now with middle eastern countries for fuel.

But that’s just barely scratching the surface of it. There are millions of people and thousands of vendors employed or working along with India’s major automobile giants. A drastic change to EVs could lead to a severe disturbance not only in the automobile industry but also to the country’s economy.

Yes, going forward, EVs are the future of the country. However, the progress towards it needs to be steady. Currently, the overall electric technology to completely replace conventional automobiles isn’t there yet. And cutting corners to get there isn’t going to be beneficial in the long run.