India plans to roll out generous subsidies for EVs beginning in April 2014, under the country’s National Electric Mobility Mission Plan, a senior government official said this week.

As reported by Indian news outlet The Economic Times, Ambuj Sharma, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Heavy Industries, said that, now that the Indian economy is picking up, the government will be more liberal in offering incentives. “The level of incentives which we are thinking is to the tune of Rs 12,000 crore ($1.9 billion) over the next seven years, till 2020.”

Two years ago, the government commissioned a study by Booz Allen of the future potential for EVs. Since then it has been working with the automotive industry to devise a suitable incentive policy. The government foresees huge growth in the EV market by 2020: 1.5 million four-wheelers and 4.5 million two-wheelers, a 17% share of total sales.

Sharma said the government plans to offer vehicle makers a subsidy of 35% of the cost differential between an ICE vehicle and a comparable EV, or possibly an even higher amount in the case of two-wheelers.

According to Sharma, Indian automaker Mahindra Reva has already set up a capacity of 40,000 units per year, and Tata Motors and Maruti Suzuki are working on both hybrids and EVs, and are likely to bring electrified vehicles to the Indian market in the next two to three years.

“Mahindra is already working on a four-seater and a seven-seater electric vehicle. Kinetic is working on a three-wheeler. TVS and Bajaj Auto are working on hybrid motorcycles, which are at a homologation stage. 5-6 leading domestic manufacturers are already in the fray and we hope that foreign OEMs will also bring in their smaller cars at least,” added Sharma.

Source: The Economic Times
Image: Sean Ellis (CC BY 2.0)