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India’s electric transition is reshaping mobility amid stubborn air pollution, uneven EV adoption and chronic infrastructure gaps.
The PM E-DRIVE scheme sets ambitious targets for buses, chargers and incentives, yet implementation lags, especially for heavy trucks and ambulances.
The real test lies in public transport electrification, a statutory Right to Charge, battery circularity and cleaner grids that genuinely cut emissions.
India’s electric mobility revolution is measured like a stock market rally: vehicular sales, subsidy rollouts, factory commissions, and local political targets. But air pollutants do not read balance sheets. They enter lungs.
That’s why the question of e-mobility needs to begin somewhere other than the showroom or the newsroom. What happens when the number of vehicles keeps rising faster than our ability to contain the pollution they generate? This is the challenge looming in the face of India, and states like Tamil Nadu, seeking to move away from petrol and diesel.
Delhi’s mean Air Quality Index fell from 256 in 2016 to 181 in 2025. Progress, certainly, but hardly a clean bill of health. The Indo-Gangetic plain is like a bowl with a lid: winter inversions trap pollutants, while transport, industry, construction compound the burden. And toxic air is no longer confined to the Indo-Gangetic Plain (Delhi, Lucknow, Varanasi). Within the last decade, coastal cities like Mumbai and tech hubs like Bengaluru have inhaled a decade of worsening smog.
That is where electric mobility enters the equation.
India’s shift to EVs is taking off, driven by falling battery costs, high fuel prices, government perks, and cleaner air goals. However, the rollout is uneven. While two- and three-wheelers are easy to electrify, heavy trucks lag behind. Meanwhile, electric buses show great promise for transit but require massive upfront funding, and private car buyers still face high entry costs and a weak resale market.
The government’s PM E-DRIVE scheme does recognise some of these concerns and complexities. The Rs 10,900 crore programme, cleared by September 2024, extended to 2028, allocates Rs 4,391 crore for 14,028 electric buses; Rs 3,679 crore for demand incentives for electric two- and three-wheelers, trucks and ambulances; Rs 2,000 crore for 72,300 charging points; Rs 500 crore each for electric trucks and ambulances; and Rs 780 crore for testing infrastructure.
The architecture is sensible and the intention clear; it is implementation where the questions begin. By July 2026, only Rs 2,322 crore, about 21 per cent of the allocation, had reportedly been utilised. Electric two-wheelers are the sole outlier, with 23.79 lakh (2.379 million) supported against a target of 24.79 lakh (2.479 million). But the market itself was already hitting its stride towards electrification.
Data on harder vehicle segments reveals a stark reality, with only 55 electric trucks funded against a target of over 5,600 and zero electric ambulances out of a planned 3,800. Furthermore, none of the 6,500 public chargers approved under the previous FAME-II scheme have been installed, highlighting a chronic infrastructure lag that the new PM E-DRIVE framework inherits. While a commuter can plug in a scooter at home, a truck driver cannot rely on heavy-duty charging infrastructure materialising along the highway.
Heavy electric trucks cost substantially more than diesel versions. Operators need reliable charging corridors, affordable financing, stable battery life, and clear resale values to make the switch. The real policy challenge is no longer about how many subsidies to throw at these heavy vehicles, but rather how to make electric freight commercially viable on its own merits.
The same logic applies to three-wheelers. For an auto driver, going electric is about his livelihood, plain and simple. Environment comes a distant second. Lower running costs only matter if charging is cheap, instantly accessible, and doesn’t involve hours of stranded downtime. This is where state policy must step in to bridge the gap.
While the Centre provides broad incentives and strategic direction, it is the states that dictate the ground reality. From registration and tax rules to public transit procurement, charging permissions, and grid connectivity, local implementation shapes the true consumer experience. Take Tamil Nadu. It isn’t just a beneficiary of the EV transition; it is the ultimate test case for how industrial policy, urban transport, and environmental goals intersect. The real measure of its success will not just be the volume of factories or vehicles it attracts, but whether electrification upends how people move through its cities.
Public transport must be at the centre of this experiment, not its periphery. Because a single electric bus can replace a hundred fossil-fuel journeys, electrifying transit fleets delivers far greater public benefit than simply adding another private car to crowded roads. But if these buses remain concentrated in a few major cities, the transition risks becoming an urban showcase rather than a true state-wide mobility strategy.
The new PM E-DRIVE scheme targets an impressive 72,300 charging points, yet the real task must shift from sanctioned chargers to functioning ones. For buyers without private parking, India still lacks the dense, dependable public network needed to make an EV as convenient as a petrol car.
This domestic gatekeeping harasses many apartment owners who have the funds for an EV but face arbitrary resistance from Resident Welfare Associations (RWAs) when trying to install a plug. Passing a statutory “Right to Charge” would remove this hurdle. Ultimately, clean mobility should not depend on whether a housing society committee decides to let a resident power the vehicle they legally own.
Private electric cars face another hurdle: the upfront price premium over petrol models, followed by resale anxiety. While a traditional engine’s wear is easy to check, an EV’s most valuable component—its battery—is invisible.
Without a reliable way to check battery health, the second-hand market becomes a guessing game. Resale value tanks, risks amplify which will scare off new buyers. Introducing mandatory battery-health certification could resolve this, while Battery-as-a-Service models could go further by separating vehicle ownership from the battery itself to make degradation measurable and manageable.
Battery recycling is not just environmental housekeeping; it is vital for resource security and economic survival. India’s battery-waste rules offer a solid framework to formalise the sector, allowing batteries that retain capacity to find a second life before their raw materials are finally recovered. This is the core logic of battery circularity: extracting value twice rather than treating a battery as junk the moment a vehicle retires.
Then there is the human-resource gap. India can manufacture EVs faster than it can train the technicians needed to diagnose batteries, repair electric drivetrains, and maintain charging infrastructure. A technological transition without a matching skills transition is like building airports without training pilots.
Finally, policymakers must confront a glaring contradiction: an EV has no tailpipe, but the electricity charging it still comes largely from fossil fuels. If transport electrification races ahead while the power grid remains carbon-intensive, we are merely shifting pollution rather than eliminating it.
Are we cleaning the air—or simply moving the exhaust from the road to the power plant?
The answer is not to reject EVs, but to recognize that electrification is only one part of cleaner mobility. Its promise depends on cleaner grids, renewable energy, reliable public transport, and fewer unnecessary vehicle kilometers.
The PM E-DRIVE scheme doesn't warrant easy applause, but it shouldn't be dismissed either; its direction is broadly right. But success should not be measured by fiscal allocations or vehicle subsidies. It should be measured by chargers actually working, buses actually running, trucks replacing diesel, batteries being recycled, and pollution actually falling.
India has drawn the map for electric mobility; states must now build the systems to make it real. The ultimate question is whether India can build an electric transit system that is commercially viable for operators while remaining green at its core from the power plant to the pavement.
S Shanmuga is a technical educationist in Chennai
Views expressed are the author’s own and don’t necessarily reflect those of Down To Earth