The Electric Vehicle (EV) industry has viewed the Union Budget presented today as a positive move for the EV as it reinforced the government's commitment to accelerating these kinds of vehicles and the green mobility ecosystem in India.
Sulajja Firodia Motwani, Founder and CEO, Kinetic Green, said the green energy and clean mobility systems have immense potential to assist sustainable development and modernise the country. This will further enhance connectivity and digitisation of the auto sector and is expected to help automotive in a greater way.
Encouraging the private sector to develop sustainable and innovative models for battery and energy as a service will increase efficiency in the EV ecosystem, and this move will encourage manufacturers to enhance investments in this sector. In addition, the ramp-up of capital expenditure and spending on infrastructure will boost economic growth. It is a futuristic budget focusing on greening the economy and digital technology.
Sameer Aggarwal, Founder and CEO, RevFin, said the policy on battery swapping will help in the wide-scale adoption of batteries as a service. This will reduce upfront ownership costs of electric vehicles and link that cost to vehicle running. Since the cost of running EVs is cheaper, the overall running cost with battery service will work out to be more economical than the usage of ICE based vehicles. It will also create opportunities for several new startups.
Arun Sunny, Founder & CEO, Trouve Motor, found that the battery swapping policy and interoperable policy to be formulated will bring down the cost of EVs down drastically and also will make the adoption of EVs faster.
Ketan Mehta, Founder & CEO, HOP Electric Mobility, opined that it is a good Budget for EVs and charging/swapping infrastructure in India. In addition, policy measure announced on battery swapping will help in the wide-scale adoption of 'batteries as a service.'
Dr Akshay Singhal, Founder, Log9 materials and Siddharth Agrawal - Director, Godawari E-mobility, also shared a similar view.
Uday Narang, Founder and CEO, Omega Seiki Mobility, said the Budget has several positive signals for EVs, manufacturing, and logistics sectors that are fundamental to the economy. It shows the shift towards sustainable development with close collaboration with the private sector. An introduction of a Battery Swapping Policy will play a pivotal role in the long-term adoption of EVs in India. EVs' interoperability standards across the industry will be especially beneficial for electric two and three-wheelers. The announcement on Drone Shakti with the introduction of Drones as a 'service', especially for the agriculture sector, will help track the lifecycle of crops efficiently.
Dr Amitabh Saran, Founder & CEO, Altigreen Propulsion Labs, said the announcements encourage all stakeholders in the EV segment, such as buyers, manufacturers, and sellers, which will accelerate EV adoption in the country. The announcements made will definitely provide a fillip to e-commerce delivery and 3Ws which are bound by time and space constraints.
Shubhankar Chaudhry, CEO, One Moto India, said almost all the auto giants in India have stepped into EV manufacturing further to launch the e-mobility mission. In fact, a number of startups have also launched electric vehicles to leverage the shifting focus towards EVs over ICE. However, creating a balance between supply and adoption was a long-stalling challenge for every player. However, with battery swapping policy and charging stations at a scale, there is hope that the industry will soon have a robust system to support the increasing adoption of EVs on the road.
'As the Budget rightly mentioned, Make In India shall create 6 million New Jobs, and all of us in the industry are dedicated to accomplishing the same,' he added.
Inderveer Singh, Founder & CEO, EVage, said, exclusive EV zones will be a positive step towards accelerating EV adoption in India. 'Though it did not find any mention in this Budget, we continue to be optimistic about seeing steps towards EVs getting faster access to loans in the PSL scheme. There is a strong need for a government-mandated standard defining the residual value for EVs. The absence of this standard is one of the biggest hindrances in acquiring affordable financing to fleet operators and commercial EV manufacturers,' he added.
Samarth Kholkar, CEO & Co-Founder, BLive noted that the Budget gave the needed and important boost to the EV ecosystem, especially startups in the category. Battery swapping is critical for public transport, and a similar framework needs to be extended for vehicles in last-mile delivery. As batteries are anywhere between 40-60% of the cost of an EV, making the same available on lease or subscription will ensure that the upfront cost is lower as well the EV user will pay as per usage and thus consume electricity for charging also in a controlled manner. This would also mean that more products need to be designed with swapping technology to ensure higher utilisation and thus faster adoption of electric mobility.
Saurav Kumar, Managing Director, Protiviti Member Firm for India said the EV based buses and commercial vehicles are expected to get a boost with the government's encouragement to promote cleantech and EVs into the public transport space. The decision to open the Defence R&D for private players is a good opportunity for some of the auto component companies to open a new revenue stream. The sector can see growth in demand of 2W, 4W and tractors in Rural Sector and CVs as an indirect outcome of the announcements of INR 2.73 lakh crore MSP payment to the farming sector and INR 20k crore investment commitment for infrastructure projects. This in turn will boost the auto component and aftersales markets to a certain degree as well, he added.
Dinkar Agrawal, Co-Founder, Oben Electric, said that owing to the emergence of special mobility zones with zero fossil-fuel policy, many manufacturers and OEMs will seize the opportunity to strengthen the EV supply chain ecosystem further. In addition, the call to extend the period of incorporation of eligible start-ups by one more year for providing tax incentives is another boost for the start-up sector that has emerged as a growth driver of our country’s economy