India’s automotive sector is on the brink of something new. On the one hand, sales of traditional internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEV) have been slow to bounce back to pre-pandemic levels. While on the other, the new and emerging electric vehicle (EV) segment has been in the news for all the right reasons and shows no signs of slowing down. A segment that constituted only 1 per cent of all new auto sales in January 2021, formed 6 per cent of it in September 2022. Already, more EVs were sold in the first six months of FY 2022-23 than were sold in the whole year before that. Multiple Indian states have launched EV policies with subsidies for EV buyers. However, there are three primary facets to this success – policies, categories and subnational trends. This issue brief examines each of these in detail.
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