India should target 100% electrification of 2 and 3-wheelers by 2030: Amitabh Kant

In China, 60% of the cars are electric and in Europe, it is 15% and in the US, it is 10%

India's G20 Sherpa Amitabh Kant on Wednesday said the country should target 100 per cent electrification of two and three-wheelers by 2030.

He also said India should target that 65 per cent of its state public transport should be electric by 2030.

India requires a clear policy framework to achieve these goals of electric mobility, Kant said.

He was addressing a side event organised by the NITI Aayog on 'Policy support and Enablers to Accelerate India's Electric Mobility during the ongoing fourth Energy Transitions Working Group meeting under India's G20 Presidency in Panaji.

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"When India urbanises, our urbanisation should be compact. There should be good livability. In India, we must first go for electrifying two and three-wheeler vehicles,” the former NITI Aayog CEO said.

"India's policy should be that we must have 100 per cent electrification of two and three-wheeler vehicles by the year 2030. Whatever it takes, fix the target and work backwards,” he said.

Kant said diesel and petrol are dying technologies. “They (petrol and diesel) are soon going to be dead and the age of electric vehicles is inevitable,” he said.

Globally, the electric car market has hit the 10 million mark and 18 per cent of the new cars sold are electric, he said.

In China, 60 per cent of the cars are electric and in Europe, it is 15 per cent and in the US, it is 10 per cent, Kant said.

“The trajectory which India will adopt will be different from the USA and Europe,” he said.

Kant also suggested to build up low cost financing for electric vehicles.

He said financial lenders are facing a challenge that electric vehicles have low resale value.

The NITI Aayog should sit with the financial institutions and work out how a second sale market can be developed for these vehicles, he said.

Another challenge is to build a robust charging infrastructure across towns and villages through PPP framework, Kant said.

He said the automobile sector is very critical for India as it accounts for 49 per cent of the manufacturing industry and eight to nine per cent of employment.

“If India is not going to make that leap forward in electric vehicles, it will lose out on the market to become world's automobile global champion,” he said.