
India's push for electric public transport faces hurdles as sales fall in FY25
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. New Delhi: India's electrification push in public transportation is slowing, with electric bus sales in FY25 set to show only a nominal increase compared with the year before. Electric bus sales have failed to make significant inroads into the tradition diesel-powered bus market over the past few years.
With only a fortnight to the end of the the financial year, electric bus sales stood at 3,124 units in FY25, about 400 units fewer than the previous fiscal, the government's Vahan portal data showed. The data also showed that penetration of electric buses in FY25 was the lowest since FY22, with only 4.72% of all buses being electric, half FY22's 9.34%. Penetration of electric vehicles refers to the share of electric vehicles sold and registered in a particular period, compared with the total vehicles sold and registered in the same period.
In this case, penetration of electric buses is the number of electric buses out of all buses sold in a financial year. This assumes importance as the government plans to spend about 40% of the ₹10,900-crore PM E-drive scheme allocation towards electrification of public transport. It has allocated ₹4,391 crore towards the rollout of a little over 14,000 electric buses by providing the vehicles at a subsidized price.
The target for this outlay is the end of FY26. The PM E-drive scheme followed two iterations of the FAME scheme. FAME refers to Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Electric (and Hybrid) vehicles.
Under all three schemes, electric vehicle makers have to sell their products at a subsidized price to consumers. The government then reimburses the amount to the manufacturer. PM E-drive was different from the previous FAME scheme due to its
. Read on livemint.com