In the United States, luxury car buyers are snapping up Teslas and other electric cars that cost more than US$60,000 (S$84,000), and even relatively cheap models cost more than US$25,000.
In India, those are all out of reach of the vast majority of families, whose median income is just US$2,400.
But an electric vehicle movement is taking place nonetheless; not on four wheels, but on two and three.
Electric mopeds and three-wheeled rickshaw taxis that sell for as little as US$1,000 are zipping along India’s congested urban thoroughfares, cheered on by environmentalists and the government as a way to clear some of the oppressive smog.
India’s success with the low-cost vehicles is also providing a template for how developing countries could ditch combustion engines and combat climate change without pricey electric cars.
Indian automakers sold 430,000 electric vehicles in the 12 months that ended in March, more than three times as many as a year earlier. Most were two- and three-wheeled vehicles, with cars accounting for just 18,000, according to industry data.
Americans bought about 487,000 new electric cars in 2021, a 90 per cent increase from 2020, according to Kelley Blue Book.
Almost 15 years ago, Indian tinkerers and small businesses began importing electric motors and lead-acid batteries from China to assemble cheap vehicles. With little regulation, the vehicles became popular, causing safety and other problems. But they also created a space for startups and established automakers looking to build something sturdier.
Now the Indian government and auto industry are betting heavily on affordable electric vehicles. Competition and subsidies have made electric mopeds and rickshaws as cheap as or cheaper than internal-combustion-engine models.
For a couple of hundred dollars, some startups are converting combustion-engine vehicles to battery power. At the same time, the recent surge in oil and natural gas prices has made it much more expensive to operate combustion-engine vehicles.
Starting with smaller vehicles makes economic and environmental sense for India. Most of the country’s transportation fuel is used by two- and three-wheeled vehicles, and car ownership is incredibly low: There are just 22 cars per 1,000 people in India, compared with 980 per 1,000 Americans.
India already sells cheap combustion-engine vehicles to Africa, Latin America and other parts of Asia, and executives and government officials hope to eventually also export lots of electric vehicles.
One of the government’s biggest goals is to make a dent in the noxious air pollution in many large cities, especially New Delhi.
India is also investing heavily in solar energy, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi pledged last year that the country would get half its energy from sources other than fossil fuels by 2030.
“The transition to electric vehicles has to come hand in hand with electricity production,” said Fatima Arroyo-Arroyo, an urban transport specialist at the World Bank.
The transition clearly will take time. Indian automakers sold more than 16 million cars, buses, mopeds, rickshaws and other vehicles in the 12 months that ended in March, and only 2.6 per cent were electric.
But some parts of the market are changing fast: More than 45 per cent of three-wheeled vehicles were electric.
SOURCE: NEWS AGENCIES