As fuel prices soar, sales of electrics increase too

NEW DELHI: As fuel prices skyrocket and concerns grow over the running cost of petrol and diesel vehicles, the electric vehicles market has quietly started to build up. As fiscal 2021-22 came to a close, the green brigade — still small in numbers — seems to be coming of age, also charged by government subsidies.
Though still a shadow of their fuel-guzzling peers, electrics have gradually started to pick up in numbers, despite battling handicaps such as absence of a robust country-wide charging network and distribution reach, a relatively weaker model line-up, inadequate component supplier set-up, and slow-developing investment pipelines.
According to auto retail numbers collated by the road transport & highways ministry as well as dealers’ body Federation of Automobile Dealers Association (FADA), sales of electric two-wheelers shot up 5. 6 times in FY22 to close the year at 2. 3 lakh units against 41,046 units in the previous fiscal. The growth is even more remarkable when one considers that less than 25,000 electric two-wheelers were sold in FY20. However, it’s still a small speck given that nearly 1. 2 crore petrol two-wheelers were also sold.