The endangered seven on India’s EV road
Hero Electric and Okinawa Autotech. The two were leading the market till 2021. Then there is Greaves Electric Mobility, a subsidiary of Greaves Cotton, a listed entity, and is backed by Saudi Arabian investor Abdul Latif Jameel.
There is also Revolt Motors, currently the country’s biggest electric motorcycle maker. Founded by Micromax’s Rahul Sharma, it is currently owned by RattanIndia, a group that has diversified interests in the energy infrastructure space. Benling India, AMO Mobility and Lohia Auto are the remaining three in the group of seven endangered EV players.
All of them have been penalized by the Indian government for not adequately fulfilling the criteria for claiming subsidies on electric scooters. To qualify for the sops under the government’s Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Electric Vehicles (FAME) scheme, companies need to localize production of scooters in India in a phased manner. Under this phased manufacturing programme (PMP), 18 components have to be localize A probe conducted by the government for over six months, starting September 2022, found the seven firms guilty of violating the guidelines.
This led to the government imposing a ₹469 crore penalty on the companies—in effect a rollback of the subsidies paid to them between 1 April 2019 and 31 March 2022. They are also debarred from availing subsidies in the future. Additionally, the group of seven stands to lose out on the subsidies for the period between 1 April 2022 and 30 November 2022, which the government had withheld for the duration of the investigations.
“We are in dire-straits. Last year, we had over 200 people working for us which is now down to just about 50," said a senior executive from one of the EV firms. “The decision of
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