With changes in the automotive industry of India seemingly coming with the speed of light, helping local manufacturers and industry professionals keep pace with the technology and policy was the goal of Electric Vehicle Summit.
Friday’s summit organised by PHD Chamber of Commerce saw massive participation of ministries and industry delegates related to the sector. The day-long event featured various stakeholders who presented a roadmap for smooth transition to electric vehicle and and also discussed the possible hurdles of the journey.
While addressing the session Deepak Sood, Chief Executive Officer, Invest Karnataka Forum pointed out that 95 percent of the electric vehicles running across the globe is actually from the some of the developed countries and the problem here is adaptation. He, however, was quite hopeful that startup ecosystem of this country can bring a remarkable change and they have the capacity to commodities this industry.
Explaining further, Sood told Electronics Bazaar “Innovations in manufacturing of EVs and batteries requires lots of passion in terms of technology understanding and they (startups) are the ones who are going to bring this change. These newcomers have the potential and ideas to cross-fertilise their understanding of automotives and machine tools and can come up with affordable solution.” He also stated that batteries for EVs will soon become the new oil and will drastically reduce the India’s dependency on fossil fuels.
Experts also underlined that since multiple battery technologies are available at present, it is actually creating a chaos and disrupting the path of investment. Ashok Kumar Prusty, Executive Vice President, Bry- Air (Asia) Pvt Ltd pointed out that it will also impact the volume and if we don’t have the volume the economies of scale is not going to come.
Suggesting on how government can encourage investment to boost local battery makers, said to Electronics Bazaar “Without government’s hand holding no company is going to invest such a large amount just for a manufacturing base. So, government should first go for a particular technology and become the key investor in the beginning. And once the business take the leap hand it over to the private entities. ”
–By Shruti Mishra