Electric & Hybrid Vehicle Technology • July 2021 • India in focus

As the second most populated country in the world, with the fifth largest car market, India offers mouth-watering opportunity for electrification on the roads but there are high hurdles to overcome in its aggressive push to revolutionize its entire mobility sector

Like most countries with a strong automotive market, India has a government that is keen to push electric vehicles and – therefore – has devised some tough targets. The goal is for 30% of the country’s vehicle market to be electrified by 2030. However, the current electric landscape features relatively few models, with those vehicles currently accounting for around 10,000 units a year in a total annual vehicle market of just under three million.

Leading the way for EVs in India is Tata Motors, with a market share of 71%. The OEM’s year-to-date sales figure in April 2021 amassed 4,800 units, a more than threefold increase over the same period in 2020. “Users, media and industry alike have admired the Nexon EV,” says Anand Kulkarni, vice president, electric vehicle and ALFA architecture - passenger vehicle business, Tata Motors. “Over 4,500 are currently owning and driving it.”

Both of Tata’s passenger vehicle platforms – ALFA and OMEGA – have been configured to enable electrification, meaning that multiple top hats or body styles can be manufactured under the company’s electrification program. These platforms will be needed because Kulkarni believes that the next decade will see a transition to electric. “In the context of the Indian market, the shift to electric is imperative to overcome the acute problems of pollution, import dependence for fossil fuel and energy security,” he says. “Stringent emission norms will make a stronger case for EVs, while a reduction in battery costs will enable the price gap against conventional vehicles to narrow. In the coming years, it will be crucial to overcome some critical barriers that exist today that hinder the adoption of EVs.”

The next three years will see more than 20 EVs launched onto the Indian market. As a result, there will be infrastructure issues to overcome. “The biggest challenge to EV adoption is the inadequate charging infrastructure in the country,” says Kulkarni. “Having said that, both the Government and private entities are each doing their bit to improve the situation.”

Tata itself has established Tata UniEVerse, an EV ecosystem involving several Tata companies who provide EV solutions to consumers. “Furthermore, Tata Motors has partnered with Tata Power to provide end-to-end charging solutions at home, workplace and for captive and public charging,” explains Kulkarni. “Under this partnership, the company has already installed fast charging stations in key metros such as Mumbai, Delhi, Pune, Bengaluru and Hyderabad, thus enabling the e-mobility drive in these cities. The plan is to have 2,500 charging points across most major Indian cities by the end of 2022.

Although the Tata-owned Jaguar and Land Rover brands are at the opposite end of the passenger car segment, there has been close ‘co-ordination’ when it comes to EVs, which has resulted in a lot of knowledge transfer to the Indian marque.

“We have greatly benefited from the experience of JLR in the development of EVs,” explains Kulkarni. “We have got our design critiqued from them to get a fresh eye perspective in order to shorten the learning curve.”

Elsewhere in the premium market, Mercedes-Benz has taken tentative steps into the EV segment in India, in light of the government targets and already having an established strong base in the country.

“We are currently looking to see which cars to introduce to the Indian market and when,” says Martin Schwenk, MD and CEO, Mercedes-Benz India. “I’ve been here nearly three years and when I arrived there wasn’t much talk about electric cars. We were almost told not to bother, but things have changed and the awareness is much better.”

Schwenk admits the luxury segment is small – total sales accounted for 1% of the total market – but the introduction of the EQC in September 2020 will, he hopes, see improvement. “When there is movement globally, customers want to know what other models we might be bringing. EQC is a niche car, but we are testing in the six major metro-cities and have had a good response so we will make it available nationwide soon.

“It will still take time because the cars are relatively expensive, but we are looking at other models in the global portfolio and will also look at the possibilities of localizing models,” he adds.

Away from the development of the vehicles themselves, Schwenk sees further challenges with other factors. “In principle, the EV market is a case of push and pull – from regulatory framework and the market respectively,” he says. “So, in that sense, the government has done good things in terms of incentives, framework and CO2 – and it has shown a willingness to move. Without that, we wouldn’t have even thought about launching an electric vehicle here.”

However, he agrees with Kulkarni infrastructure success will only come with the help of private investment if EVs are to become a viable option for owners in India.

“In the mid to higher segments it might be easier because there will be more people who are able to charge at home, but if you are dependent on charging somewhere else it becomes a problem.”

“Even though the government has made announcements about infrastructure, it’s difficult for them to deliver on all the fronts at the moment,” Schwenk reasons. “We don’t see too much happening in deploying charging infrastructure, but it is one of the main requirements for the market. That’s not different from other markets, but the energy and investment that is needed in India is more substantial than other areas.”

Digging deeper into the Indian government’s target of 30% EV ownership by 2030 reveals the massive role that two- and three-wheelers will play. Independent studies show that passenger cars are more likely to account for 10-15% by the end of the decade, but with the inclusion of other transport that higher figure is possible. Three-wheelers make sense because they are cheaper to buy and run than a car, let alone an electric car, while it has the largest two-wheeled motorcycle market in the world.

It is therefore no surprise that to see a company such as Ola Electric come to the fore. It is planning the world’s largest two-wheeler factory, with a capacity of 10 million units a year. At full capacity, the 10 production lines will roll out one scooter – produced by 3,000 AI-driven robots and using Industry 4.0 principles – every two seconds.

The Ola Futurefactory includes its own test track and ticks sustainability boxes by having a solar roof and 100 acres of forest on the 500-acre site. To support all of the new products, the company has also recently announced a network of 100,000 charging points across India.

Ola Electric started out in 2010 as a ride-hailing operation and is now one of the world’s largest such businesses in the market. The opportunities for producing electric scooters were too big to turn down, however, hence the factory expansion. Ola Electric’s chairman and group CEO, Bhavish Aggarwal, has been quoted as saying: “It’s simplistic to say that Ola is India’s Uber or India’s Tesla. But we’re not. Neither are we the Uber of India nor the Tesla of India. We are the Ola of the world. “When we started off with electric mobility, we had two choices to make: do we play incremental and small or do we play disruptive and big?” he added. “We chose to play disruptive and big and that comes with its own challenges of the scale of thinking, execution and resources required. That’s why we have put out a vision and are executing fast for our factory.”

Meanwhile, another major supplier specializing in two-wheeler technology has also made big inroads in the Indian market, the latest being a supply deal with Padmini VNA for electric motors.

UK-based Saietta has been working on axial flux technology in electric motors and created a product which is compact, light and ideally suited to the Indian market. Delivering high torque, power and efficiency the units are set to feature on brands within Padmini VNA’s customer base, such as Hero Motor, Bajaj Auto and Royal Enfield.

“Our axial-flux technology offers a combination of class leading performance at the price required for the Indian market and is exceptionally durable and robust,” says Wicher Kist, CEO, Saietta Group. “This makes the AFT electric motors the go-to zero-emissions powertrain for 100cc+ motorbikes which is the next sector that will go electric in India.”

Schwenk has seen enough in his limited time in India to have faith in what the country is doing when it comes to electric vehicles. “The framework in India is complicated, but there are also deliverables in many elements,” he maintains. “It’s not that the country is programmed for failure – that’s not what we see. If you have ambition there are a lot of things you can achieve. And also there are limited means, so it’s hard to juggle. It will take time to adopt EVs, but people here put a lot of effort in. Outside of Mercedes-Benz, I’m involved in industry bodies here and the competence is certainly there as well as the ambition.”

To promote the manufacturing and adoption of electric vehicles India launched its FAME (Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Hybrid and Electric Vehicles) in 2015, where through incentives and subsidies it focused on generating demand, technology platforms, launching pilot schemes, and upgrading charging infrastructure. Its second phase (FAME-II) was introduced in 2019 where US$1.36bn has been made available for purchase incentives of EVs as well as the development of charging infrastructure. However, it has been criticized for four-wheelers, as incentives are only offered to vehicles used for public transport or for commercial purposes, rather than private use.