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Summary
India’s road and transport minister Nitin Gadkari wants streets relieved of fossil-fuelled vehicles. It makes economic and climate sense. But slow EV adoption offers the country’s green drive a reality check.
The government’s push for clean mobility, though a climate imperative, is pushing India’s automobile industry through a difficult transition.
Going by road transport and highways minister Nitin Gadkari’s comments this week, the Centre wants faster progress. “There is no future for diesel and petrol vehicles,” Gadkari said, adding that hydrogen was the “fuel of the future.”
This, even as a shift to electric vehicles (EVs) has fallen short of expectations.
To be sure, the urgency has grown; vehicles free of carbon exhaust are not just desirable to help us achieve India’s net-zero goal, they would also spell relief from hydrocarbon-import reliance, with all its cost volatility, as seen in the wake of the Gulf war’s supply disruption.
But EV conversion still suffers from a cart-before-the-horse conundrum, especially in the case of four-wheelers. Charging networks must emerge for vehicle users to go electric.
In some places, fire-safety rules bar charging in basement parking lots that are common to high-rise residential blocks.
When EV sales will pick up remains woefully unclear. All said, it may be quite a while before the fumes of fossil fuels dissipate, unless something dramatic shifts the odds.
English (US) ·