E-rickshaws are low maintenance, have a lower cost to operate than their petrol and CNG counterparts
India’s fleet of battery-operated three-wheelers has grown to more than 1.5 Mn in less than a decade
Currently India's e-rickshaw industry is largely unorganised though big players like Mahindra are now getting in the game
The e-rickshaw industry has now established itself as the undisputed outlier of India’s auto sector. Amid the worst slowdown in vehicle sales, e-rickshaw sales have grown unabated.So is the e-rickshaw India’s best bet as a climate-friendly urban mobility solution? “Meeting the country’s demand for 24×7 reliable electricity supply will require doubling the installed power generation capacity with at least 50,000 megawatts (MW) to 60,000 MW of thermal power capacity,” a top power sector official had reportedly said earlier in May.“The unorganised sector has been peddling e-rickshaws of poor quality, with lead-acid batteries that need to be changed every 6-8 months with no proper warranty,” said Sulajja Firodia Motwani, CEO of Kinetic Green Energy & Power Solutions.Considering total number of e-rickshaws in India to be 1.5 Mn, the annual emission reduction is of 3.801 x 10^6 tonnes of CO2, according to Shakti Foundation (a clean energy think tank)
E-rickshaws are low maintenance, have a lower cost to operate than their petrol and CNG counterparts. But more importantly, across North India, where deteriorating air quality levels have made urban areas inhospitable, the emission-less e-rickshaw is being hailed as the humble, homegrown agent of change to a cleaner, less fossil fuel dependent India.