The Government should tighten the norms and regulations for the low-speed two-wheeler and three-wheelers in the electric vehicles (EVs) segment because that is where more unorganised players are present, a top industry veteran said.
“The unorganised players exist because there are very loose norms at the low speed vehicles, like the e-rickshaws have very easy homologation standards where as we have to meet with 30 standards...e-rickshaws have only seven-eight standards. So, I think the government should tighten the standards for low-speed two and three -wheelers which will then see better technology, performance and safer vehicles on the roads,” Sulajja Firodia Motwani, Vice-President, Kinetic Engineering, told BusinessLine.
Motwani was hopeful of the regulation norms and operational standards rising as, according to her, the Government is “working hard” to push the EV industry and there will be more and more organised players that will dominate the market over time. Motwani, who is also the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Kinetic Green Energy & Power Solutions, said the Government is likely to come out with the battery swapping or battery-as-a-service (BAAS) policy, which will help customers forget about range anxiety, leading to growth of the sector.
There is currently work underway at NITI Aayog and Kinetic is also part of the stakeholders’ consultation, she said. NITI Aayog has announced that over the next few weeks it will come out with the comprehensive battery swapping policy and standards.
This will give customers a big relief because what happens generally is that if a particular company shuts down who had a different battery size or a connector, it was tough to find a replacement. So standardisation will help exchange of batteries effortless for customers, Motwani said.
“That means they (NITI Aayog) are going to standardise connectors and battery sizes so that customers do not have to run high and dry...there is also going to be competition among the players rather than a monopoly,” she said.
Kinetic sales
Meanwhile, talking about Kinetic, she said that the company is targetting a sales of one-lakh electric two-wheelers in 2022-23 from around 25,000 units right now. The Pune-based company last week has also partnered with Indraprastha Gas (IGL), India’s largest CNG retailer to establish ‘Energy Cafe,’ a battery-swapping station that would replace depleted two and three-wheeler EV batteries with fully charged ones.
“We are already a leading three-wheeler company (in EVs) and entered the two-wheeler space in 2021. We are now rolling out aggressively and the range is being expanded and a lot of work is also carried out in powertrain, battery, advanced solutions on Internet of things (IoT) side for connected solutions and remote diagnostics. We are a pure EV player so will be aggressive now,” Motwani added.
According to a recent Vahan data (Ministry of Road Transport & Highways), the electric two-wheeler retail numbers have grown by 425 per cent at 1,43,271 units in 2021 as against only 27,269 units in 2020. Similarly, in the three-wheeler EV segment, retail sales grew by 74 per cent in 2021 to 1,53,432 units as compared with 88,139 units in 2020.