India’s taxes on hybrid cars range as high as 43%, compared to the low rate of 5% for EVs, which also stand to benefit from billions of dollars in incentives to companies that build them domestically.
Asked how talks with the government were progressing to secure lower taxes for hybrid cars, Chief Executive Hisashi Takeuchi said he thought government support would be forthcoming.
“The government’s support to EVs is good … to support some more green technology is even better,” he said on Wednesday. “I believe the government will support all technologies as far as they are good and contribute to a better India.”
has said it will not launch an all-electric model before 2025, and even then, Takeuchi said, decarbonisation plans cover other clean technologies, such as compressed natural gas (CNG), bio fuels, flex fuel and hybrids.
In an interview to Bloomberg, Maruti Suzuki’s Chairman RC Bhargava had said that
electric vehicles aren’t the answer to reducing carbon emissions in the world’s third-biggest releaser of greenhouse gases — at least not in the immediate future.
“Talking about electric cars without looking at the greenness of the electricity generated in the country is an inadequate approach to this problem,” Bhargava said. “Until the time we have a cleaner grid power, it’s necessary to use all the available technologies like compressed natural gas, ethanol, hybrid and biogas, which will help reduce the carbon footprint and not push any one technology.”
India’s shift to electric vehicles is also much slower than other major markets like China and the US even though Prime Minister
Narendra Modi has committed to making the South Asian nation a net-zero carbon emitting one by 2070. Arthur D. Little estimates by 2030, electric passenger cars will make up only about 5% of total
EV sales. More progress on the two- and three-wheeler front will bring the automobile battery-powered total to about one-third.
“EVs are not going to be a large part of car sales, irrespective of what other manufacturers are saying or planning,” Bhargava said. “The ability to get green transportation is going to take time in India because of the nature of our electricity generation.”
