India's new-car sales could become 100 per cent electric by 2030, according to a recent interview by the nation's coal and mines minister Piyush Goyal at the Confederation of Indian Industry Annual Session 2017. And, as opposed to some other countries, Goyal expects the shift to be led by consumer demand.
“We are going to introduce electric vehicles in a very big way. We are going to make electric vehicles self-sufficient ... The idea is that by 2030, not a single petrol or diesel car should be sold in the country,” Goyal said.
“The cost of electric vehicles will start to pay for itself for consumers. We would love to see the electric vehicle industry run on its own.”
It's big news for India; a country where air pollution reportedly causes almost as many deaths as smoking.
You might not be aware of it, but their automotive industry is one of the world's largest — evidenced by the production of almost 24 million cars in the fiscal year of 2015–’16. This should mean that EVs will soon become a common site on Indian streets. Indian brands like Tata and Mahindra are already known to be studying EV technologies — Mahindra having campaigned in the Formula E Series for several years, and Tata having produced their own range of future-facing concept cars.
Tata in fact could become rather integral in this whole process. They signed a deal in March with Volkswagen to develop vehicles together for the Indian domestic market. The results of their collaboration are expected to start landing by 2019.
In the wake of 'Dieselgate', Volkswagen Group have shifted their EV and hybrid programs into hyper drive. Could this see Tata reap some big EV benefits?