Estimating the adoption of electric vehicles: A case study of four Indian states

Rapid growth in petrol and diesel-powered vehicles has resulted in significant increases in tailpipe greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution, both of which harm public health in Indian cities. Furthermore, India’s dependence on imported fuel to transport people and goods threatens its fuel security. Therefore, electric mobility has been sought to deal with these issues. The governments have framed several plans and policies to promote electric vehicles (EVs) and achieve the target of EV30@30. However, EV adoption in Indian states has been slow. Therefore, this paper aims to estimate the number of EVs needed to be registered to achieve the desired target by 2030 by taking a case study of four states: Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, and Gujarat. The vehicular registration data used in this paper has been obtained from the government database. The study looks at the EV adoption rates of passenger vehicles such as two-wheelers, cars, auto-rickshaws (including e-rickshaws), and buses. According to the findings, the average annual share of passenger EVs is less than 2% in Delhi, less than 1% in Uttar Pradesh, and less than 0.5% in Karnataka and Gujarat during the study period. According to the models’ estimates, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, and Karnataka will need to register 0.31 million, 1.51 million, 0.88 million, and 0.79 million passenger EVs, respectively, in FY 2030–2031 to achieve a 30% EV share of total registrations.