Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) Demands for Lower Taxation on Electric Vehicles

India: On-going demand for policy roadmap towards the manufacturing and purchase of electric vehicles in India, Society of India Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) has requested the government to clearly announce the policies that can support the auto makers to plan their investment in Electric Vehicles in the near future. The policies including the lowering of taxes on these vehicles will have positive impact on the growth of the Electric Vehicles within the automobile industry.

Energy Efficiency Services Limited (a joint venture set up under the Ministry of Power) of India intends to build on bulk procurement and demand aggregation to procure and deploy electric vehicles in order to shift from the national fleet of government vehicles (about 500 000 cars) to Electric Vehicles. Moreover, under JNNURM (Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission), NEMMP (National Electric Mobility Mission Plan) and Smart city plans launched by the government, various state and local transport bodies are expected to purchase electric buses over the next 5 years. However, clear policy from government of India can provide an edge to the auto industry players in order to deliver competitive and technically viable Electric Vehicles in the market.

According to the BlueWeave Consulting, the wave towards the increasing demand for Electric Vehicles, owing to its positive impact on environment, has already been established within the major automobile players, because the players of auto industry are not against electric vehicles and they are working towards their upcoming models of Electric vehicles. SIAM has proposed policy measures for 40% electrification in automobile industry by 2030 and 100% by 2047 at government request. However, since government has still not issued any formal policy promoting the use of Electric Vehicles, SIAM claims that formal announcement of policies like lower taxation by government can help the automotive players, instead of just announcing deadlines to enable proliferation of Electric Vehicles.

According to a recently published report by BlueWeave Consulting, on “Global Electric Commercial Vehicles Market, 2016-2024”, the global Electric Commercial Vehicle is projected to grow over a CAGR of 12% during the forecast period of 2018-2024, owing to ability of these vehicles to boost energy efficiency because they do not require direct fuel combustion, increase in demand for high performance, fuel-efficient and low-emission vehicles, coupled with stringent rules and regulations in several countries and growth of public charging infrastructures in countries like Norway, France, China and other developed countries.