NEW DELHI: The Society of Manufacturers of Electric Vehicles (SMEV), an industry body for the electric vehicle industry, released data on Thursday that shows that the pandemic has had a hard impact on the demand for electric vehicles in India. According to the statement, the sales of EVs in India fell by a sharp 20 per cent in financial year 2020-21 to 2,36,802 units.
In 2019-20, the Indian market had witnessed overall EV sales of 2,95,683 units. Segment-wise in FY21, electric two-wheeler (E2W) segment sales declined by 6 per cent to 1,43,837 units compared to 1,52,000 units in FY20 the FY21 E2W sales included 40,836 high-speed and 1,03,000 low-speed E2Ws. The E3W segment registered sales of 88,378 units as against 140,683 units in FY20.
However, the data doesn’t include E3Ws that are not registered with the transport authority, SMEV clarified. Meanwhile, in the pricey E4W segment, the industry recorded a registration of 4,588 units, compared to 3,000 units in FY20, a jump of 53 per cent.
Commenting on the performance, SMEV Director-General Sohinder Gill said, “We were anticipating a good growth before the start of FY21, but sales remained stagnant due to various reasons. The sales in the electric three-wheeler and two-wheeler segment stood low as compared to last year.” He added, however, that one good thing that has happened is that people have started moving towards advanced lithium-ion batteries, with the city-speed and high-speed E2W category seeing growth.
“However, a lot more needs to be done to achieve the target under the FAME II scheme. Timely intervention by the government in a form of policy change is required to fuel the growth,” Gill asserted, adding that a strong bank finance mechanism for EVs was still missing in India.