Explained: Electric Cars Not Covered By PM E-DRIVE Scheme, Know How Sales May Suffer

PM E-Drive Scheme: For two years, with an outlay of Rs 10,900 crore, the new PM Electric Drive Revolution in Innovative Vehicle Enhancement scheme offers fiscal incentives on electric two- and three-wheelers, buses, trucks, and ambulances. Cars are not in the scheme of things, unlike in FAME-2.

Two-wheelers, however, like four-wheelers, have been kept out of the temporary Electronic Mobility Promotion Scheme (EMPS) introduced in April this year. The industry had expected that the scheme would throw at least some crumbs for four-wheelers. The demand for subsidies has grown, mainly following the visible fall in sales after the FAME-2 scheme ended.

Officially, this means the government has excluded electric cars. In fact, they believe this will suffice for them-diminishing the GST on electric cars, devising schemes to localize components and batteries, and providing extra funds for charging stations so as to reduce that range anxiety.

PM Modi Announced PM E-Drive Scheme

The Union Cabinet has cleared the PM E-DRIVE scheme on Wednesday. The scheme will offer incentives for purchasing around 25 lakh electric two-wheelers, 3 lakh electric three-wheelers, and 14,000 electric buses. Incentives will be disbursed to eligible electric vehicles. The government will reimburse automakers for selling them. Just like its earlier avatar FAME-2, the PM E-DRIVE scheme will be administered by the Ministry of Heavy Industries.

The scheme supports the government's greater objective of promoting electric vehicles, which will reduce greenhouse gas emissions and reduce fuel import dependence. It is going to be key in attaining the target of having 30 percent of the vehicles become electric by 2030.

This Program Is Not Like FAME-2

Unlike FAME-2, which supported 55,000 electric four-wheelers, including hybrids, PM E-DRIVE is not an electric cars program. The only glimmer of electric in the plan is the installation of 22,100 fast chargers for electric four-wheelers; indirectly, it addresses some of the range anxiety issues plaguing electric car owners today.

It doesn't also have electric vehicles, because the Minister for Road Transport and Highways, Nitin Gadkari earlier this week said that the EV sector no longer needs subsidies of any kind. He said the cost of lithium-ion batteries was going down; there was an economy of scale to it. He thinks that in two years, the cost of petrol and diesel vehicles would be close enough to that of electric ones.

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