Delhi EV ecosystem growth, EV sales and Policy impact • EVreporter

The Delhi EV Policy notified in August 2020, aims to have 500,000 new EVs registered or one in four vehicles sold as EVs in Delhi by 2024. The policy also aims to create financial incentives such as purchase incentives, scrapping incentives and interest rate subsidies for EV loans. The policy also explores measures to support job creation in driving, selling, financing, servicing and charging electric vehicles. This article examines the period after policy implementation in terms of the overall EV sales and establishment of charging infrastructure in the region.

Major highlights of the policy are mentioned here.

Goal of registering 500,000 new EVs by 2024

According to the Vahan portal, the total number of electric vehicles in Delhi stands at over 1.82 lakh till November 2022, with the majority of segment sales in Low-speed L3 e-3Wheeler (62%) followed by e-2Wheeler (23%). Of these, 86,255 (47%) EVs were registered in the past 27 months, i.e. after the implementation of the EV policy.

• EV sales in Delhi are growing at an average quarterly growth rate of 29% after the implementation of the policy for the period shown in the graph.

• The EV sales saw a dip in Q1 FY21-22 due to the pandemic-related lockdowns and changes in the financial year. After this dip, there was an increase in high-speed e-2W sales and has an overall sales share of 43%, the highest among all categories.

• L5 category e-3Wheelers are gaining popularity in Delhi over CNG models, with no sales recorded in Q2 FY20-21 to around 1,000 units sold in Q2 FY22-23. A total of 4,024 units of L5 e-3Wheelers were sold during the period of the above analysis, and the cargo vehicles (L5N) dominated with 85% of all L5 vehicles sold.

• E-4Wheeler sales have also witnessed growth after the policy implementation, from just 57 units in Q2 FY20-21 to 1,348 units in Q2 FY22-23. A total of 6,050 (8%) units have sold during the time period analysed for this article.

Delhi EV penetration rate

The Delhi EV Policy aims to accelerate EV penetration across all vehicle segments so that 25% of all newly registered vehicles will be EVs by 2024. The policy also seeks to increase the proportion of electric buses in public transport bus fleets to 70% by 2025. The Policy has 26 clauses concerning demand incentives for EVs, of which 23 are operationalized, and the remaining are partially operational. To encourage mass adoption of electric vehicles, the policy focuses on incentivizing different segments and tax incentives offered in addition to the demand incentives provided under the central government’s FAME II programme, according to the Delhi Dialogue Development Committee (DDCD) report.

Since the policy came into force (last 2 years and 3 months), Delhi has recorded sales of over 86,000 electric vehicles till Nov 2022. Delhi saw about 10 per cent EV penetration in total vehicle sales in Delhi in the last six months (May-November 2022) compared with 3 percent EV penetration before the implementation of the policy (January–July 2020). The below figure shows the category-wise EV penetration rate in Delhi for the first two years after the implementation of the policy and represents how effective the policy is for different vehicles.

Note: Low-Speed e-3Wheeler of L3 Category are not included in this EV penetration analysis.

The low-speed L3 e-3Wheeler category is not included in the above visual as it does not perform as well as CNG and diesel powertrains. L3 e-3Wheelers are not an all-out replacement for ICE 3W counterparts, which offer higher speeds, more payload and carrying capacity. High-speed L5 e-3W are capable of competing with ICE 3Ws and hence included in the analysis.

EV sales in the 2Wheeler segment increased from 2,838 units (1%) in the first year to 22,976 units (7%) in the second year of analysis, as indicated above. The top e-2Wheeler manufacturers in Delhi with the highest EV sales are Hero Electric, followed by TVS Motors, Ather Energy, Okinawah and Revolt.

The high-speed electric 3Wheeler (L5) segment shows tremendous growth rates over its CNG-powered counterparts. L5 EV sales increased from 528 units (10)% in year 1 to 2,708 units (28%) in year 2, with CNG powertrains selling 4,610 and 6,852 units, respectively. The top L5 e-3Wheeler manufacturers in Delhi are primarily startups Omega Seiki, Altigreen and Euler and legacy players like Piaggio and Mahindra.

The four-wheel segment had the lowest EV penetration, with first-year selling just 1,147 (<1%) and 3,957 (3%) for the second year. Even after stringent emission standards and heavy taxes on diesel vehicles, sales appear to have increased from 10,574 units in the first year to 14,717 units in the second. Petrol mild-hybrid vehicles are also doing well, with a cumulative total of 14,037 units sold over the two years. Strong hybrid model vehicles are few in India and attract a 43 per cent tax inclusive of GST, while battery electric vehicles attract a tax of about 5 per cent making it hard to sell fully hybrid powertrains. Toyota and Maruti Suzuki are among other leading carmakers lobbying with the government for a favourable policy push for hybrids under India’s FAME scheme, whereas manufacturers of battery electric cars such as Hyundai Motor India, Tata Motors and Mahindra and Mahindra (M&M) are showing stiff resistance to support hybrids.

The Delhi government has ambitious plans to electrify its public fleet by 2025 and witnessed good EV penetration for the two years, with just 30 units (12%) in the 1st year to 271 units (32%) in the 2nd year.

The Delhi government’s announcement that EV sales share is the highest in the country or a 10% sales share in 2022 is correct, based on Vahan dashboard data. About 3% or 15,000 units of electric vehicle sales share in 2022 were low-speed e-3Wheelers, which do not really replace ICE vehicles. The L3 model has its own purpose and does not challenge or completely replace the more powerful 3Wheeler ICE models. Therefore, ignoring the L3 model from the analysis, around 7% of ICE replacement by EVs would have occurred in Delhi in 2022.

EV Charging Delhi

Two-wheelers and three-wheelers are the most popular EVs in Delhi, which means prioritizing the chargers for light electric vehicles and facilitating battery swapping. On 7th Dec 2022, The Road transport and highways minister, Nitin Gadkari, in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha, mentioned the highest number of electric vehicles registered to date was in Uttar Pradesh (4.1 lakh), followed by Delhi (1.8 lakh) and Maharashtra (1.8 lakh). Gadkari added that the states with the highest number of operational public EV charging stations (PCS) are Delhi (539) and Tamil Nadu (660).

We found conflicting data on the number of public and captive EV charges in Delhi. According to the Ministry of Power dashboard, so far Delhi has installed 414 public and captive charging stations with 876 charging points. There are 156 public chargers and 258 captive charging stations with AC points and fast and ultra-fast DC points. Whereas, the government website of Switch Delhi and DDCD report claim that Delhi has 2,452 operational public and semi-public charging points and 234 battery-swapping stations across 1,919 locations, representing a 28-fold growth since the policy was introduced in August 2020 and Delhi currently has an EV-to-charger ratio of 25:1.

The report also mentions that the Delhi EV Policy contains 13 clauses regarding EV charging infrastructure, of which 10 are fully operational and two are partially operational. Delhi Transco Limited (DTL), the state’s nodal agency for charging infrastructure, kicked off India’s largest tender earlier this year to deploy public charging and swapping station across 100 locations in Delhi. Nearly 900 charging points and 103 battery swapping stations are being installed as part of this tender under the PPP (public-private partnership) model. Seventy per cent of these land lots are cut into Delhi Metro parking lots, followed by DTC bus terminals, car parks and other locations.

According to the action plan, the Delhi government, after considering EV penetration and public charging needs of different vehicle segments and use cases in the city, is aiming for a charger/EV ratio of 1:15, which would create approximately 18,000 public and semi-public electric vehicle charging points by 2024, and the stations to be accessible within a radius of 3 kilometres.