The electric vehicle (EV) sales have not done as expected during the festive season this year, but it is expected to improve in the coming days – in both two-wheeler and three-wheeler segments, a top official at Lohia Auto said.
Speaking to businessline in an interview, Ayush Lohia, Chief Executive Officer of Lohia Auto, said, “The numbers have not done so great as we are expecting, but yes, the things need to improve going down the line. We have been seeing some traction in electric two-wheeler segment and three-wheeler segment, but the numbers have been almost flat as compared to last year.”
It has not improved like what the industry had expected, he said.
He said there have been a few hindrances and the major challenge the industry faced was because of the Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Electric Vehicles (FAME) subsidy, wherein the amount has reduced drastically by 30-40 per cent, especially in the two-wheeler segment.
“The delay in FAME subsidy and production linked incentive (PLI) scheme has been the main reason. The FAME subsidy has been reduced from ₹15,000 per kWh battery to ₹10,000 per kWh...Costs (input) have also some role to play in this,” he told businessline.
Talking about a few challenges, Lohia said that the industry is still not clear how the FAME-III scheme is going to shape up post March 2024. “There are a few reports too saying that the FAME scheme would be discontinued and if that would be the case then the numbers will be impacted much higher. We would see a drastic fall in the numbers because the vehicle will not be competitive of an internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicle,” he added.
In October last year, the industry sold around 77,000 units of electric two-wheelers and this year, it was around 74,000 units in the same month.