Auto industry demands sops for EVs from upcoming Budget

The auto industry on Friday has sought sops to promote electric vehicles (EVs) and suggested the government to bring in additional incentives for scrapping of vehicles in the upcoming Budget.

The Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) stressed on a growth-oriented Budget with focus on greater allocation for capital expenditure.

“We are expecting that the government should come up with FAME-III (Faster Adoption & Manufacturing of Electric Vehicles) like policy...good schemes like production linked incentive (PLI) are already in place, which we are sure will continue,” Vinod Aggarwal, President, Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM), told reporters here.

The FAME-III if unveiled, is expected to offer financial incentives to electric two-wheelers and three-wheelers as well as government-owned buses, he said.

“We are also expecting that the government could do something more on the incentives for the scrapping of vehicles, because the scrappage policy is already in place but we have not seen much impact of that,” Aggarwal said adding that to give further boost to the scrapping of old polluting vehicles, something needs to be done at the earliest.

Meanwhile, SIAM also reported total domestic wholesales (dispatches to dealership) of passenger vehicles (PVs) which grew by three per cent year-on-year (y-o-y) to 3,37,757 units in June compared with 3,27,788 units in the same month last year.

Total two-wheelers sales grew by 21.3 per cent to 16,14,154 units last month against 13,30,826 units in June 2023. While the scooter sales grew by 40 per cent to 5,42,851 units (3,87,373 units), the motorcycle sales grew by 13.4 per cent y-o-y to 10,30,906 units.

Total three-wheelers sales also grew by 12.3 per cent to 59,544 units during the month , SIAM said in its monthly sales report.

The grand total of sales across categories grew by 17.5 per cent to 20,11,455 units (17,11,639 units).

Quarterly sales edge up

On the quarterly basis, the total PV domestic sales grew by three per cent to 10,26,006 units against 9,96,565 units in April-June period last year. This is for the first time ever in the June quarter that the PV sales have crossed the 10 lakh-mark. This was primarily driven by robust demand for utility vehicles, SIAM informed.

Total two-wheelers sales in Q1 grew 20.4 per cent to 49,85,631 units (41,40,964 units).

Similarly, total three-wheelers sales grew by 14.2 per cent to 1,65,081 units.

The domestic total sales of commercial vehicles (CVs) also grew by 3.5 per cent to 2,24,209 units in the Q1 against 2,16,550 units in the same period last year.

Grand total sales of all vehicles across categories grew by 16.4 per cent to 64,01,006 units in the quarter under review compared with 54,98,752 units in the corresponding quarter last year, the SIAM report indicated.

“All segments viz., passenger vehicle, commercial vehicle (CV), three-wheeler and two-wheelers posted growth in Q1 of 2024-25 over the Q1 of last year. While PV and CV have witnessed moderate growth, the two-wheelers and three-wheelers have posted very handsome growth in double digits,” Vinod Aggarwal, President, SIAM said.

Within two-wheelers, scooters have posted even higher growth based on some green shoots of recovery in entry level two-wheelers, he said.

“With positive outlook on monsoon and coming festive season, the automotive sector is poised to perform better in the balance part of the year,” Aggarwal added.