Tata Motors will be the biggest loser when FAME-II scheme expires on March 31

New Delhi

The country’s largest electric vehicle (e-PV) maker, Tata Motors, was the biggest beneficiary of the Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of (Hybrid and) Electric Vehicles in India (FAME) scheme. With the expiration of the scheme on March 31, it is set to be the biggest loser.

Sources told businessline that the government did not extend the FAME-II scheme because the benefits of the scheme were not widely spread. Tata Motors got the maximum benefits (for both the e-buses and e-PVs) simply because it was producing the maximum number of EVs compared with companies like Mahindra & Mahindra or MG Motor India (in the e-PVs segment).

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Tata’s Advantage

“It is natural for Tata Motors to draw the maximum amount of the incentives from the government because it has the maximum number of vehicles in its portfolio,” a Delhi-based industry veteran said, adding that there are still very few companies that could benefit under the FAME-II scheme.

Email queries sent to Tata Motors did not elicit any response till the time of going to press.

According to sources, the company has sold around 2,200 electric buses and 15,000 e-PVs (for fleet services) under the scheme, for which it has got an average of ₹20,000 per kWh for each of the buses and ₹10,000 on an average for the electric cars on a per kWh basis.

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Under the FAME scheme, the company gets incentives for three of its vehicles, including the Ace EV (small commercial vehicle), EV Bus and XPres-T (fleet cars for aggregators like BluSmart and Uber).

According to the Ministry of Heavy Industries (MHI), the company gets ₹2,15,000 of the incentive amount on Xpres-T, which means the company would have benefited around ₹322.5 crore (₹2,15,000x15,000) from the scheme.

Similarly, for Ace EV, Tata Motors gets an incentive of ₹2,13,000 on each vehicle sold, which it passes on to the customers. For e-Buses, even if hypothetically the company gets an incentive amount of around ₹5 lakh, then it comes to around ₹110 crore from the 2,200 e-Buses it sold.

The FAME-II scheme was launched in 2019 with a budget outlay of ₹10,000 crore, targeting to support 7,000 e-buses, five-lakh electric three-wheelers, 55,000 electric passenger cars, and 10-lakh electric two-wheelers.

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