Specific
Uber partners with India’s first electric car maker for e-autorickshawsedit
Ride hailing giant Uber has partnered with Sun Mobility to bring electric three wheelers in India. Interestingly, Sun Mobility is founded by Chetan Maini who had made India’s first electric car Reva. It was later sold to Mahindra & Mahindra. Sun Mobility offers technological solutions to electric vehicles. With their partnership with Uber, Sun will offer swappable smart batteries and quick interchange stations to original equipment manufacturers who will build EVs. Uber drivers and fleet owners can then in turn buy the EVs for lesser costs without the battery.
Electric dreamsedit
SUN Mobility’s partnership with Uber Technologies to deploy electric three- wheelers across India is only the latest in a wave of clean energy initiatives in India. The company’s partnership with SmartE’s fleet of 45 rickshaws in Delhi, which can be seen gliding around Metro stations, is likely to be increased in the near future. “After making four-five rounds we’d have to spend four hours charging our rickshaws.
Mention
PEOPLE IN THE NEWSedit
Chetan Maini-led Sun Mobility and Dara Khosrowshahi-led ride-hailing application Uber have announced their partnership to deploy electric three-wheelers across select cities in India.(
EV startups crank up efforts as segment’s mood turns electricedit
A week after the Union Budget was presented, Ather Energy, a Bengaluru-based electric vehicle (EV) startup, rode into a new market, Chennai, signalling the momentum building up in the segment after the government’s new focus on electric mobility.
Industry
SIAM hails govt’s move to cut GST rate on electric vehicles, chargersedit
Auto industry body SIAM on Saturday said there is a need for a long-term unambiguous electric vehicles (EVs) road map while welcoming reduction in GST on EVs and chargers and reiterated the need for government intervention to stimulate demand to enable the auto industry to overcome the current slowdown.
Electric vehicles makers welcome duty reductionedit
The auto industry on Saturday welcomed the reduction in GST on electric vehicles (EVs) and chargers, saying it will help in creating an ecosystem that will encourage faster mass adoption of eco-friendly mobility. While terming the step as yet another bold move, the manufacturers, specially electric two-wheeler makers, sought similar reduction of 18 per cent GST on spare batteries, claiming it would help maintain low running cost of EVs over their lifetime.
Gujarat: New DSIR cluster for electric vehicles, li-ion batteriesedit
Dholera Special Investment Region (DSIR) is all set to become electric vehicles and lithium-ion batteries manufacturing cluster, according to top officials of Gujarat government. The state government officials are in talks with Indian as well as foreign companies in the e-vehicle and battery manufacturing sector that have shown interest in setting up manufacturing facility in DSIR.
Future belongs to electric vehicles: UP transport minister Swatantradev Singhedit
Uttar Pradesh transport minister Swatantradev Singh on Sunday said electric vehicles are the need of the hour and the future belongs to them. “Electric vehicles have many advantages. Less consumption of diesel and petrol will not only reduce pollution, it will also save foreign currency which is used to import the fuel,” Singh said at a session on electric mobility at the second groundbreaking ceremony for industrial projects worth Rs 65,000 crore here.
Get priorities right on electric vehiclesedit
The decision to reduce GST on electric vehicles from 12% to 5% could help energise the EV sector and put more electric-powered vehicles on the road, but it will not do much to tackle pollution and congestion or improve mobility. Rather than tax breaks to stimulate demand for electric vehicles, the government should use its funds to make public transport more effective and to strengthen the grid, a vital necessity, and build a distributed charging infrastructure for electric-powered mobility.
India has game plan for electric vehicles: NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kantedit
India has put in place a game plan for electric vehicles (EV) and its components like batteries to ensure clean cities, reduce imports and utilise solar power, NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant said in Ahmedabad on Saturday. He said domestic battery manufacturing for electric vehicles provides a “massive market opportunity”, and also quickens the transition to such environment-friendly transport, which is vital for the country to help combat pollution, congestion, strengthen energy security and create jobs.
GST Council reduces rate on electric vehicles from 12% to 5%edit
The GST Council on Saturday decided to reduce GST rate on electrical vehicles (EVs) from 12 per cent to 5 per cent and on EV chargers from 18 per cent to 5 per cent from August 1, 2019, an official statement said after the 36th meeting of the council. The move is aimed at accelerating the adoption of eco-friendly mobility solutions. The Council also approved GST exemption for hiring of electric buses by local authorities.
Competition
Ather Revs up Post GST Cutedit
Electric vehicles manu- facturer Ather Energy said it will pass on to customers the entire bene- fit of reduced taxes, following the go- vernment’s move to slash the Goods and Services Tax (GST) rate on elec- tric vehicles to 5% from 12% earlier. This is expected to increase de- mand for its EVs and put pressure to ramp up manufacturing, it said.
Going the extra mileedit
SmartE is banking on its superior serv- ices, especially in the aspects of com- muter safety and reliability, to compete with them. Non-standardisation of charging points and a nascent supply chain of e- vehicle parts are other challenges faced by SmartE.
Ola puts electric plan in top gear, rejigs management to bolster projectedit
Freshly-crowned unicorn Ola Electric Mobility has been on an overdrive to bolster its team to take its electric vehicle and solutions initiative forward. The company, according to sources, is diverting a part of its manpower from teams which mainly manage Foodpanda and Ola Play. Some of the mid to senior level managers, executives, vice-presidents and engineers have been shifted to the Ola Electric team over the last few weeks.
Magenta Power Introduces Portable & Compact EV Charging Solutions with ‘ChargeGrid’ Seriesedit
Magenta Power unveiled the ‘ChargeGrid’ Series. The series is India’s first fully integrated, unmanned, convenient, payment-enabled open network of smart charging solutions. The ‘ChargeGrid PRO’ series is best suited for community charging – be it offices, malls and residential societies. The next generation charger ‘ChargeGrid PRO’ comes online connected, with the Mobile App and Command Centre.
Tesla electric cars to be available in India starting 2020: Elon Musk’s latest tweet confirmsedit
The wait is finally drawing closer to an end as Tesla chief Elon Musk has just confirmed again on Twitter that the electric car company will make its entry in India by end of this year or definitely by 2020. In a recent interaction with the students from IIT Madras, the Tesla CEO said the car may run on the bumpy Indian roads in 2020. The Avishkar Hyperloop team from IIT Madras participated in the finals of “SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition 2019”, a global competition organized by the American aerospace manufacturer and space Transportation Company, on July 21.
Looking to raise funds to fund accelerated expansion: Hero Electricedit
Hero Electric is planning to raise funds to finance its accelerated expansion to cash in on the wave of electric vehicles (EV) in India, according to a top company official. The company is looking at an investment of around Rs 700 crore in the next three years to ramp up production capacity of its electric scooters to 5 lakh units annually from about 1 lakh units this year.
International
The Lithium Mine Buildup Is Outpacing the Electric-Car Boomedit
Lithium miners are bulking up for a booming future when electric cars go mainstream. But speed bumps loom, with prices tumbling on a burst of new production and demand growth slowing in China. Between mid-2015 and mid-2018, prices for lithium, the soft, silvery-white metal crucial for rechargeable batteries, almost tripled as the world’s fleet of electric vehicles hit the 5 million mark, and the auto industry began to fret over the supply of raw materials.
Shortage Of Battery Material May Put The Brakes On The Charge Of EVsedit
Electric vehicles around the globe currently constitute just 0.5% of the total vehicles being run. But as the number is set to grow, following the announcement of many automobile makers to go completely electric by 2025, there will be a future dearth of raw materials to make these EVs. Why? Because of the batteries these EVs run on.