Yulu’s Amit Gupta feels Electric Vehicles need a mutual fund-like awareness campaign

In India where the EV adoption is still in its infancy stage, Yulu’s Amit Gupta opines that EVs too need their own “mutual fund sahi hai” campaign.

In a report on Forbes India, Amit Gupta, the Co-Founder of Yulu Bikes, has said that Yulu has placed its IoT-enabled charging boxes, Yulu Max at several locations across Bangalore to solve the lack of charging infrastructure problem. Two-wheelers are the early adopters of the EV technology and Mr Gupta says that India should learn from Europe and our country should also have similar policies that include subscription models and better incentive plans for EV start-ups and products to promote EV adoption. In a recent government and industry meet, Yulu has given suggestions like loan guarantee schemes and better lending terms from banks, policy for parking infrastructure of shared mobility vehicles, etc. Mr Gupta also says that India needs a national awareness campaign, something on the lines of ‘mutual funds sahi hai’ promotion, to encourage people to adopt EVs.

Rajat Verma, Founder of Mumbai startup Lohum, has said that manufacturing of battery cells and motors, along with charging station infrastructure is very important in the near future. Lohum aims to strengthen the country’s EV ecosystem by focusing on three factors – low-cost battery packs, recycling batteries for raw materials and domestic intellectual property along with a seamless supply chain.

For its part, the government is pushing for EV adoption with tax benefits and subsidies and is spending Rs 10,000 crore under the FAME II (Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of (Hybrid &) Electric Vehicles Phase II) till March 2022. Two-wheeler and three-wheeler segments will be the first to adopt EVs on a large scale, followed by public transportation sector that includes buses, taxis etc.

Though on one side, the speed with which the products are designed, developed and brought to the market is really good, India still lacks superior manufacturing capabilities, especially the batteries, says Akhil Aryan, Founder of Ion Energy. While the price of lithium batteries have gone down by almost 80 per cent since 2010, it hasn’t been majorly beneficial to the Indian industry. This is because the majority of the batteries are still imported from countries like China, Taiwan and South Korea, which drives up the cost of production significantly.

[Source: ForbesIndia.com]