India policy move boosts growing electric two-wheeler market

Price incentives support shift away from petrol models in country’s largest vehicle class

New price-incentive policies are about to land on India’s large two-wheeler market. The impacts could be far reaching, dampening the country’s oil consumption growth and speeding up wider electrification. Moreover, if emissions guidelines—which do not yet govern the two-wheeler market—were to cross over from the automobile sector, that too could light a fire under electric two-wheelers, or E2Ws. “For two-wheelers particularly, the central government has recently increased its subsidy package to the consumer by 50pc, and several state governments are now matching with attractive incentives as well,” says Shikha Rokadiya, a researcher at thinktank the International Council on Clean Transportat