CHENNAI: India’s electric vehicle sales crossed the one million-unit mark in FY22-23. According to the latest data from the Society of Manufacturers of Electric Vehicles (SMEV), the overall EV industry registered sales of 1,152,021 units including e-buses, e-cars, e-three-wheelers, and e-two-wheelers in FY 2023. This is up from 726,861 units sold in FY21-22, up 58%.
The biggest slice of the EV pie at 62% was two-wheelers with the industry selling 726,976 high-speed e-two wheelers though adoption fell month on month “ending with an annual shortfall of more than 25% over the minimum target set by Niti Aayog,” said a statement by SMEV.
This apart, the two-wheeler sales tally also included 120,000 low-speed e-scooters, 285,443 low speed e-rickshaws, and around 50,000 low speed e-cycles bringing the combined low and hi-speed two-wheeler sales to 846,976 units in FY23.
That’s a sharp jump from the 27,888 electric two-wheelers sold in FY17 and nearly three times higher than the 328,000 units sold in FY22. Electric three-wheelers comprised the second biggest slice of the EV pie at 34% clocking 401,841 units in FY23. Electric four wheelers at 4% sold 47,217 units while electric buses were a mere 0.16% with sales of 1904 units.
Industry, however, has voiced its concern over the suspension of FAME2 subsidies to companies that do not meet localisation eligibility arguing that it has impacted sales. The momentum in electric two-wheeler adoption “fell after the festive season not because of consumer demand but the sudden withholding of more than the Rs 1,200 crore subsidy already passed on by the majority of OEMs to the customers on the pretext of delay in the localisation,” said the SMEV statement.
“Another Rs 400 crore of the OEMs operating in the premium end also got stuck due to the allegation of under invoicing to bypass the FAME norms.”
Currently 16 companies are awaiting resolution to this impasse.
Sohinder Gill, director general, SMEV, said, “While all the earlier schemes since 2015 had negligible effect on the EV adoption, the revised FAME2 had a dramatic effect on e-two wheeler adoption as it decreased their prices by around 35%. This started attracting the component supply chain that had earlier shunned anything to do with electric two wheelers because of extremely low volumes. It is only in the late 2021, suppliers started queuing up to OEMS to show their eagerness of developing EV component. It took most of these suppliers 12 to 18 months, the usual time that it takes to localise and now most of them have started setting up sufficient capacities.”
The industry, he added, is seeking an extension of the eligibility criteria by two years and an extension of the FAME scheme for another 3-4 years.
