Sustainability forum: Shifting gears — ‘EV’aluating the road to sustainable mobility

Every year on September 9, many countries celebrate World EV Day to encourage the transition to e-mobility and sustainable transportation among consumers, businesses, and policymakers. The day assumes significance in the Indian context, particularly in light of the nation's commitment to achieving net zero emissions by 2070.
Modern electric vehicles (EVs) are raising the bar regarding the usage efficiency of alternate fuel sources. As global electricity production gradually transitions to renewable energy, EVs herald a new future of sustainable mobility. Even India has pledged to meet half its energy needs with non-fossil energy sources by 2030 by reaching 500GW of installed capacity.
Moreover, the updated NDC of India to the United Nations promises to reduce emissions intensity (GHG emission per unit of GDP) by 45% by 2030, from 2005 levels. To achieve this milestone, the country has to reduce its anticipated carbon emissions by billions of tonnes and needs to promote versatile policies, incentives, and awareness. One significant step towards this is the favourable policy environment by the government for an EV-dependent India.
The global automotive industry is undergoing a paradigm shift as it tries to switch to alternative, less energy-intensive options. The rise in oil import prices, rising pollution, and international commitments to combat global climate change are some of the main reasons behind India's recent actions to quicken the switch to e-mobility. At the United Nations Climate Change Conference 2021 (COP26), India vowed to work toward the aspirational goal of having at least 30% of private vehicles be electric by 2030.
India faces a complex challenge on this front, with costs, accessibility, actual usage, lithium battery disposal, and numerous other issues acting as roadblocks. Therefore, it is essential to start a dialogue on all such topics about EV adoption in India, including climate change, carbon emissions, EV leverage, potential risks, and market challenges. Whether EVs can help reduce emissions significantly and how government and automobile industries can collaborate to achieve these challenging emission reduction goals remains a puzzle.
The Business Insider India's virtual panel, "Shifting Gears: Evaluating the road to sustainability", took place on September 9, initiating a discussion on the EV road to sustainability. The panel highlighted the challenges and opportunities of EV adoption, as well as the initiatives of the government, Indian automobile and Indian infrastructure capabilities to accelerate the transition to EV transition in India.

The panel was moderated by Malini Bhupta, Editor-in-Chief of Business Insider India. Dr Reji Mathi, director of the Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI), started the conversation by saying, "One of the key things we all look towards EV is the cleaner part. As rightly pointed out by many forums, 40% of ambient air quality pollution comes from the transport sector. So, locally, yes, EV is going to play a very key role in pollution reduction, but far more has to be done, and there is a lot of focus by the government on this sector."
Anmol Jaggi, CEO of the ride-sharing company BluSmart Mobility, said that, "Over the last three years, we have seen an exponential rise in the charging infra created by private and public entities due to EVs. At BluSmart, we have taken the baton and said that this is not a threat but one of the biggest opportunities to create non-existent infrastructure and move the whole economy and country to a low carbon intensity platform."
Suhas Rajkumar, founder & CEO of Simple Energy, explained that, “It’s not just infrastructure, it's more of a supply chain issue and the OEM part of it. If you see the India road map of EVs in the last ten years, most of them are outsourced, and most of them are based out of China. This is because China has already figured out the supply chain, but the problem with that is that you don’t get a quality product out here, so people are not really going forward and buying EVs.”
Anshul Khandelwal, chief marketing & revenue officer at Ola group, said that, “Consumers are not just hungry for EVs, but also great quality products. One difference we need to understand is it’s not just about adopting EVs. It's about how EVs actually make the product fundamentally better. In addition to sustainability, EV technology fundamentally changes the vehicle’s nature, which gets people more excited — the performance and the range, and the features that the EV offers, internal combustion engine vehicles cannot offer.”

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The global automotive industry is undergoing a paradigm shift as it tries to switch to alternative, less energy-intensive options. At the United Nations Climate Change Conference 2021 (COP26), India vowed to work toward the aspirational goal of having at least 30% of private vehicles be electric by 2030. The Business Insider India's virtual panel, "Shifting Gears: Evaluating the road to sustainability", initiated a discussion on the EV road to sustainability.