Electric cars: How India can adopt

One of the biggest and most ambitious targets of India is to make it so that only electric cars are sold by 2030. Such a big move requires a lot of attitude and practice changes in the country.

The gravity of the target can be understood when looking at Norway. Norway is one of the early adopters of electric vehicles starting in the late 90s. However, even their target for this is just five years before India’s 2030 target.

India reaching such a bold target would definitely be quite a feat. Nitin Gadkari, the transport minister said that he won’t be asking of the shift to electric cars instead “bulldoze” the initiative. This obviously suggests that the shift would not be an easy one.

Taking a look at how Norway achieved what it did, it is clear that there was a strong political will to get it done.

The government pushed interesting initiatives like tax incentives.

The country also maintained a nice public-private partnership for building and maintenance of the infrastructure.

More than that, the citizens of the country played one of the biggest roles in the shift. The people themselves become environment conscious. According to surveys, the citizens of Norway were okay with heavy taxing for polluting vehicles.

According to the climate minister of Norway, Vidar Helgesen the country was willing to collaborate with India and help such a big country with more than a billion population make the shift to electric vehicles.

He announced that the country is willing to share its experience in the field and collaborate with India.

At present, India has only one carmaker for electric cars: Mahindra & Mahindra. They announced that there would be three new offerings in the space by 2019-20 along with the two cars it already has. This trend is likely to continue but only time will tell if India can reach its goal.

Image by Mikes-Photography from Pixabay (Free for commercial use)

Image Reference: https://pixabay.com/photos/electric-car-car-electric-vehicle-1458836/