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Maharashtra is witnessing a sharp rise in electric vehicle adoption, particularly in the two- and four-wheeler segments. As many as 271,705 electric two-wheelers and 37,556 electric cars registered in 2026, official data showed.
The new Electric Vehicle Policy 2025 aims to curb vehicular PM 2.5 emissions and plans to reduce 325 tonnes of vehicular PM 2.5 emissions, and around 1 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions from the transport sector in the state by 2030.
Effective from April 1, 2025, until March 31, 2030, the policy is designed to establish the state as India’s leading hub for electric mobility. It aims to balance environmental sustainability with economic growth by driving large-scale EV adoption and strengthening the local manufacturing ecosystem.
The policy’s primary vision is to foster a sustainable and innovative transport system that contributes to energy security and reduces air pollution, with key objectives to accelerate the adoption of EVs across all vehicle segments through targeted incentives.
All EVs registered during the policy period receive a 100 per cent exemption from motor vehicle tax and registration fees.
As per the policy, 30 per cent of all new vehicle registrations should be EVs, with higher targets for specific segments like electric two-wheelers at 40 per cent and electric three-wheelers at 40 per cent — thus deliberately pushing two- and three-wheelers towards rapid electrification.
The same targets have been detailed for public transport, with public bus fleets in major cities — Mumbai, Pune, Nagpur, Nashik, Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar and Amravati — planned to be electrified.
To promote e-mobility, it aims to install a charging facility every 25 kilometres along highways, while allowing a 100 per cent toll tax exemption for passenger vehicles on the Yashwantrao Chavan Mumbai-Pune Expressway, Hindu Hrudaysamrat Balasaheb Thackeray Maharashtra Samruddhi Mahamarg and Atal Bihari Vajpayee Sewri–Nhava Sheva Atal Setu as part of this initiative.
An official from the transport department in the state government said that Maharashtra is the only state taking this initiative to promote EVs.
But the policy targets all existing and new fuel pumps on state and national highways are to have at least one fast charging station. Further, all state transport bus stations/bus stops across the state shall have at least one fast charging station installed on their premises. These initiatives are subject to technical feasibility.
In 2019, the Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, Government of India (MoHUA), released an amendment to the building code and town planning rules for provisioning EV charging stations in private and commercial buildings, the policy states.
These amendments include all new residential buildings having 100 per cent of parking spaces as EV charging ready. These are also to have one dedicated community EV charging point.
New commercial buildings are to include 50 per cent of total parking spaces for EV charging, while the norms have been softened to 20 per cent for existing commercial buildings.
However, it has challenges in terms of charging infrastructure. Maharashtra has one of India’s largest public EV-charging networks, but the infrastructure is still uneven relative to the state’s rapidly growing EV fleet.
According to the Ministry, Oil Marketing Companies (OMC) had installed 2,243 EV public charging stations in Maharashtra during the previous five years, of which 1,786 were operational as of March 1, 2026.
With just nine EV public charging stations installed by OMCs in Maharashtra in 2020-21, the numbers have increased multifold in 2026. The largest annual addition occurred in 2024-25.
As of December 2025, Maharashtra had 4,166 public EV charging stations, including 1,205 fast chargers and 2,961 slow chargers, putting it second among states, behind Karnataka’s 6,096 charging stations.
Besides, the Air Quality Status of Maharashtra 2022-23, published in 2024, tells a different story. The state air-quality report analysed 30,128 AQI observations. Only 3.28 per cent were in the “good” category and 12.97 per cent were “satisfactory”. By contrast, 43.13 per cent were moderate, 40.23 per cent poor and 0.24 per cent very poor.
To conclude, 40.47 per cent of all monitored observations were poor or worse, while another 43.13 per cent were moderate.
This poor air quality is not primarily from vehicular pollution. In terms of PM10, the largest contributor was construction at 26 per cent, while road dust resuspension contributed 19 per cent.
Biomass burning, at 17 per cent, ranked third, followed by industrial sources at 16 per cent.
Fossil-fuel combustion and vehicular emissions amounted to 12 per cent and 10 per cent respectively.
Fossil-fuel combustion accounted for 25 per cent with respect to PM2.5, while industrial sources amounted to 22 per cent. Biomass burning and vehicular emissions were 19 per cent and 13 per cent respectively.
The Maharashtra Pollution Control Board currently lists 18 non-attainment cities in its action-plan system, including Mumbai, Pune, Nagpur, Nashik, Navi Mumbai, Thane, Aurangabad, Chandrapur, Kolhapur, Solapur, Sangli, Latur, Jalgaon, Jalna, Akola, Amravati, Badlapur and Ulhasnagar.
A 2022 IIT-Bombay study based on measurements from two road tunnels in Mumbai examined PM 2.5 emissions from road traffic and pointed out that traffic-related PM2.5 included — tailpipe exhaust 52 per cent, while brake wear contributed to 30 per cent and vehicular-driven resuspended road dust 18 per cent.
While for PM 10, resuspended road dust recorded 63 per cent, vehicular exhaust contributed 28 per cent and brake wear amounted to 9 per cent.
