Comments
Our Bureau To achieve the ambitious target of generating sales of one million electric two-wheelers (E2W) under the Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Electric Vehicles in India (FAME 2) scheme, there is a need to remove the needless impediments existing today. Such a step can also catalyse major investments into ‘Made in India’ products, the Society of Manufacturers of Electric Vehicles (SMEV) said on Wednesday.
“We urge the government to come up with corrective measures that will help the industry achieve the envisaged target of 10 lakh E2Ws,” said Sohinder Gill, Director General, SMEV.
FAME 2 was launched in 2019 with a plan to put at least 10 lakh high-speed E2Ws on the roads by March 2022. Out of 52,959 high-speed bikes sold since January 2019, only 31,813 were given subsidy under FAME 2, as the rest did not qualify for the same.
‘Strings attached’
“The FAME 2 scheme had some good points and laudable objectives but came with so many strings attached — most of them introduced prematurely or unnecessarily — that led to the achievement of only 4 per cent of the stated targets. The scheme could not attract customers to shift from the polluting petrol bikes to E2Ws, mainly because the preconditions and qualification criteria of FAME 2 made the bikes unaffordable to the mass market customer despite the subsidy,” Gill said.
The policy offers higher incentives to buyers of higher battery power. However, customers are unable to avail this benefit due to the limiting of speed and range under FAME 2.
Speed and range
To match the criteria of speed and range under FAME 2, the vehicle cost is going up, which is beyond the common man’s budget, he said. To avail the subsidy, an E2W should have a minimum range of 80 km per charge with minimum speed of 40 km per hour, he added.
He further said that despite the setback, the E2W industry is seeing a positive sentiment and a high level of customer interest, thanks to a policy push.
“The government's continued support to the aligned industry, perhaps the only vital missing link, is a robust, customer-friendly FAME 2 policy,” Gill added.
Meanwhile, SMEV said high-speed E2Ws saw sales of 25,735 units in calendar 2020, against 27,224 units in 2019.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.