Written by: Saumya Gupta
Norway is planning to go all electric by the year 2025, phasing out all sales of new diesel and petrol cars and coming up with a “polluter tax” system. Apart from being rated as the first country to exceed the sales of electric vehicles over gasoline, Norway has also achieved top rankings in many areas over the past few years and somewhere, the reason for a successful adoption of Electric Vehicles is that it has been rated the happiest country in the world in 2017, its global pollution global rank was 119 in 2020, and much more.
India is planning to launch electric vehicles in 2021 as it is facing an energy as well as a pollution crisis in its cities. India is ranked second in the list of most polluted countries in the world; this calls for urgent changes in Indian policies. While doubts persist over severe damage continuing even in case of mass adoption of EVs in India — with emission sources switching from combustion engines to coal plants — recent studies have indicated that EVs running on electricity generated by even the most pollutant of coal power will still reduce emissions by over 25%.
According to Nils Ragnar Kamsvag, Norwegian ambassador to India, “The best part is that a higher percentage of renewable energy mix directly translates into a higher emission reduction with EVs as compared to conventional cars. Therefore, the introduction of EVs will significantly contribute to curbing the estimated growth of emissions from the transport sector, given that India is making great strides towards its renewable energy target of generating 175 GW of clean power by 2022.”
From Norway’s example, it’s clear that giving a push to EV technology globally can make EVs financially viable and affordable for many customers all over the world. India is also adopting EV policies quickly and gunning for all-electric mobility by 2030. With the early adoption of EVs and effective policies already in place, Norway holds good value for India to collaborate with. India can herself follow a few steps in the acceptance of mass electrification by 2030.
Since 1990, Norway has acquired a zero purchase taxation system where owners of EVs have been given benefits in the form of low annual road tax, a 50% rebate on company car tax etc. Building a successful charging infrastructure all over India might be challenging because there are many areas that are not fully developed when it comes to infrastructure.
There might be a long way to go, but India is launching various initiatives and subsidiaries to make sure electric vehicles get adapted at a fast pace and can be seen on the roads of India and one day it might be on the top countries with the highest share of electric vehicles.