They are lacking in EV transition. It would've been great to have lightweight cheap EVs for urban areas.
India does not have a free market for gas stations and as a consequence there is always a shortage and you will see huge lines to fill up gas. A large number of drivers live in slums which may not even have proper electricity so they can't charge it at home. Most buildings are not designed to have electric chargers as we do not have a concept of "parking spot". We park wherever the car fits.
What do you mean? There are multiple suppliers and gas stations are owned by private entities.
> there is always a shortage and you will see huge lines to fill up gas
Been driving for over 15 years, all over the country. Never have I seen shortages as you mention.
>A large number of drivers live in slums which may not even have proper electricity so they can't charge it at home
The target market for Ev's, at-least for now, is the middle class office commuting people. As for drivers unable to charge their cars at home, they could park it in charging stations. Even now, drivers park their cars far away from their homes, as being slums, you don't have place to even drive the car near their homes.
> Most buildings are not designed to have electric chargers as we do not have a concept of "parking spot"
Almost all apartments constructed for past 10 - 15 years, and that is a lot mind you, have designated parking spaces for each and every apartment.
Funny enough, no one in the country raised voice against it.
Fuel is what affects price of everything from grocery to your mobile phone shipped through Amazon, so why is government collecting and increasing this tax on people?
However, taxes can come down. Geo-politically speaking though, it is in the interest of the govt. that the consumption of fuels is kept to a minimum, as we don't have any significant oil reserves.
Growing up we had no gas station in the 20Km radius. We owned a "moped" and we had to carefully plan our trips keeping that in mind. This was a not a demand supply problem because everyone and their brother owned mopeds like us. Some folks would smuggle petrol and store it in large metal barrels in their homes and then sell it at 15% profit. Occasionally they use to catch fire killing people and little children. The person would than be seen as a horrible criminal who deserved what he go for storing gas illegally.
Since a major trade highway went through our town it was actually no brainer to put a gas station in the vicinity but two people who owned gas stations on the same highway would go to great lengths to stop any new license for being issued, it reached to a level where they even murdered would be gas station owners. Eventually an even bigger goon managed to setup a gas station solving a lot of these problems but the gas continued to remain expensive as government taxed it around 100%.
Energy is the foundation of all economic activity. Part of the reason why USA is the most prosperous country on earth is because some amazing entrepreneurs like Rockfeller managed to reduce the price of gas to a fraction of what it was before them. India's abject poverty is primarily because of how tightly Indian government controls the entire energy market. From electricity to Petrol everything is not just tightly controlled but has the most perverse rent seeking policies around it.
To own a gas station you need to get several licenses and permits from the gas companies which are mostly government owned like Indian Oil. These companies will not give licenses to anyone unless you are politically connected and willing to pay huge sums of bribes. Last time I checked the bribes for a highway patrol pump camp to around USD 900K not worth it. Of course if you are son in law of the right minister you get this for free giving you a $900K head start over your competition.
> there is always a shortage and you will see huge lines to fill up gas
I mean shortages of gas stations and not gas. I can give anecdotal evidence but the oil companies have a plan to double total number of gas stations in India from 65K to 120K in next 5 years that alone should tell you a lot about current state. (USA for example has declining number of gas stations).
> Almost all apartments constructed for past 10 - 15 years, and that is a lot mind you, have designated parking spaces for each and every apartment.
I hope so, and I hope they have the ability to retrofit these spots with charging stations with mechanisms to pay for that electricity.
It's so bad that while traveling in India, I've seen electrical lines burning multiple times.
Also, India lacks its own energy sources and huge solar energy project was stopped by USA/WTO (because they were unhappy that India doesn't buy expensive solar panels from USA companies).
The infra is bad in the rural areas and the quality of infra varies greatly by the state.
I was working remotely so I needed reliable electricity and Internet. I had problems with both in every city I visited (and I visited many, from New Delhi to Kanyakumari.
Also, while traveling between cities on my motorcycle, I frequently saw powerlines burning or electrical poles burning in rural areas. Something I've never ever seen in any other country.
Only in Nepal the situation with both is worse.
Infrastructure sure is not well done but the electricity bit is not true at least from what I have seen.
If you are in a city like New Delhi/Mumbai, most homes/hotels do have reliable power. For rare cuts most have power through power backups.
If you visit remote places, it is definitely worse. They have electrified a lot of places, but power is absent most of the times in the day. Some people rely on solar powered batteries for basic electrification at night. I have never seen a powerline burning though.
In cities there are internet providers which do better than others, so it might have been your luck with some bad provider; but they are not even present in remote places.
LTE based mobile internet has coverage problem in cities with pockets that get bad coverage, otherwise the provider 'Airtel' that I have used while traveling does seem to perform well in cities. Remote places have no coverage from LTE providers as well.
The only exception to this is Mumbai.
Well, depends on the Metro. Chennai is notorious for power cuts. Delhi is supposed to be better - but I used to live in Noida (Part of NCR, but technically UP and not Delhi) and the power cuts were ridiculous - around 60-90 minutes without power every day (I was fortunate enough to have backup power where I stayed).
My small hometown that was approx 25km outside Cochin in Kerala had far more reliable power supply. The point I'm trying to make - power supply varies greatly, and being a "tier 1 metro" does not always mean more reliable power than some obscure town you've never heard of.
Not true in most tier 1,2 & 3 cities.
Somewhat true in rest of India.
However, lack of an existing electricity infra, in my book counts as an opportunity to establish micro-grids and smaller storage based grids powered off renewable energy, especially solar.
E.g. Germany lacks both the necessary power and infrastructure. And I'm almost sure that German electrical infrastructure is in much better shape compared to Indian.
Renewable energy require several times bigger and expensive infrastructure costs because of unstable generation.
Do you have a source for that because it sounds doubtful to me.
And right at the top, 2 years back, federal Transport Minister announced right in front of all car manufacturers event, to which he was invited for keynote "I am not going to allow you to sell Petrol Cars after 2030". Obviously no governemnt can last that long, but still.
Audience was like ...... aaaawwwwoooo, oh man, what do we do with all our current investment! Really gave the manufacture clear message to kick-start R&D NOW. And things have definitely started moving.
My personal guess is at least 50% sales-market-share by 2025. Domestically manufactured EVs.
The same report also mentioned an EV by some Indian manufacturer that seemed to have good specs on paper.
So I am assuming there should be EVs in future from more of them as is happening in most parts of the world now.