India’s Electric Vehicle (EV) start-up Earth Energy plans to spend USD13.4m over the next two years on production capacity expansion, as reported by Economic Times on December 30. According to Earth Energy CEO Rushii Senghani, the company will use the fund for boosting production and R&D, as the demand for electric automotive is growing exponentially. Senghani also revealed that the company will add four new EV models to its portfolio by 2024, including two e-scooters, one motorcycle, and a commercial car. Before the capital injection, the Indian automaker has invested around USD2.5m in its EV business since 2017.
The Indian government announced a plan to decarbonize the transportation sector last November, aiming for 30% electric vehicle sales penetration for private cars, 70% for commercial vehicles, and 80% for two- and three-wheelers by 2030. Fulfilling the goal could reduce 156m tons of crude oil consumption for India. However, the EV market in India is still at an early stage, as EV sales only accounted for 1.66% of the total auto shipment so far in FY22. To support the emerging industry, the Indian government has provided USD75.16m of incentives to 165,000 EVs as of November 25, 2022, under the Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Hybrid and Electric Vehicles (FAME) II scheme. In addition, the country published a Production-Linked Incentive Scheme (PLI) for battery producers in May 2021, which intends to raise the penetration of homemade batteries in EVs and reduce costs.
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