Due to the various cash incentives made available by the government, sales of green vehicles have more than doubled in the month of April and May 2015.
The government has been providing various cash incentives to buyers of green vehicles and this move seems to have paid off well. Sales of the same has witnessed an increase of more than two folds in April and May this year with the incentives amounting to Rs. 29,000/- for motorcycles and Rs. 1.38 lakhs for cars respectively. More than 2500 electric two-wheelers have been sold in these two months, which has risen from the 1000 units sold in the same period last year. Manufacturers are expecting the sales to increase even further as the incentive policy becomes more popular with time.
India currently is the largest two-wheeler market for petrol engines producing 18 million units per annum. The electric two-wheeler segment on the other hand has only been able to retail just a few hundred units every month. The sudden rise in popularity of green vehicles can be directly attributed to the FAME India policy, which stands for Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Hybrid and Electric vehicles in India. For the first two financial years, the government has allocated Rs. 795 crores to this policy that covers various other vehicles including three-wheelers, buses and light commercial vehicles as well.
This has helped Mahindra Reva by a great extent. The company which has the world’s largest production capacity in the segment has been able to double its sales in the past few months, selling around 200 units of the e2o electric car. Mahindra is expecting the electric car market to gain a sizeable share in the auto industry once charging infrastructure and government schemes get a more mass market appeal.
The National Electric Mobility Mission Plan target is to have at least seven million electric vehicles plying on Indian roads by 2020. The Centre is also planning to reduce road tax and VAT on green vehicles to as minimum as possible. The sudden rise in demand has also caught Toyota by surprise. The world’s largest car maker was able to sell more than 280 units of the Camry hybrid sedan in the first 50 days of 2015, as compared to just 720 units sold in the whole of 2014.
