What are the barriers in the way of electric vehicle (EV) adoption in the country? While policies and strategies are being announced by the Central and State governments to popularise EVs, a new survey among users perhaps shows the road ahead and the focus required.

The study among 817 EV buyers and users of both four-wheelers and two-wheelers in the north, west and south of the country revealed that at least 50 per cent of them were vary of inadequate charging infrastructure. This, of course, brought with it range anxiety and a hesitancy to choose an EV vehicle for long distance runs.

Though this has been a complaint since the beginning of promotion of EVs in India, stake holders have been trying to address the issue with more and more players entering the charger infrastructure market. However, the latest announcement that Convergence Energy Services Ltd—subsidiary of Energy Efficiency Services Limited—is setting up charging stations of fast, slow and moderate speed capacity in several of Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd outlets across many cities and along the major highways will come as a major boost for this section.

The survey, ‘Triggers and Barriers of Electric Vehicle Adoption’ conducted by Climate Trends and YouGov, an international research data and analytics group, also identified other roadblocks among those who felt conventional internal combustion engine vehicles were better than EVs. Consumers of both four-wheelers and two-wheelers had a negative perception on the resale value of EVs and their pick-up power.

At a webinar on the subject, in the context of negative perceptions of resale value, Abhinav Soman, Programme Associate, Council on Energy, Environment and Water, felt that though it was an important concern, answers were being found. “Recent state EV policies are already beginning to address this with incentives to original equipment manufacturers offering buy-back schemes and such measures will help develop a secondary market,” he said.

In fact Ather Energy’s Chief Business Officer, Ravneet Phokela who was present, said his company had already begun offering buybacks on their EV models to enhance the buyer’s confidence. “There is good reason to have anxiety over the resale of EVs because of the quality of products until recently. But that will start changing with bigger players and better products coming into the market.”

On the plus side, EV users had many good things to say. Of the respondents, 86 per cent rated EVs as being better for the environment than fossil fuel cars and 56 per cent in both segments felt EVs could reduce air pollution. Consumers already using EVs, in fact, were surprisingly not so harassed by limited charging infrastructure and 80 per cent were willing to recommend EVs to others. A promising start, no doubt.

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