Govt to turn highways into e-highways to boost EV adoption

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One of the biggest challenges for the government to boost the sales of electric vehicles is to roll out a dense network of charging points across the country and in order to put the concerns of the prospective buyers of being stranded in the middle of a journey without charge to rest, the administration is working on a plan to build electric vehicle-ready highways around the country. The government has chosen the Golden Quadrilateral to kick off its exercise, The Economic Times has reported. It would electrify a total stretch of 6,000 km along this network which is used by millions of vehicles every day. If the administration succeeds in laying out a sufficient number of charging points along the way, it might go a long way in bringing down the consumption of fossil fuels and tackling emission from internal combustion engine vehicles. This plan will be rolled out over the next seven years to help raise the adoption of electric vehicles both in the private and public sector. This plan will complement the plan of the oil marketing companies to set up well over 7,000 charging points across the petrol pumps in the country. “The government’s focus is to convert roads into electric highways to help substantially reduce logistic costs and bring down pollution levels in the country by switching to green mobility. The development of electric highways is likely to happen simultaneously with induction of electric buses accelerating the establishment of an ecosystem for EVs in India,” one of the officials, who wished to remain anonymous, told the newspaper. One of the plans that the government has initiated includes replacing 8 lakh aged, polluting diesel buses with electric ones. The target is to have these green wheels on the road by 2030. Of the 8 lakh electric buses, 2 lakh will be for state transport operators, 0.5 lakh for schools and ferrying employees and 5.5 lakh for private operators. Sales of EVs is widely believed to be constrained by the absence of a charging network around the country. Sales of EVs in 2023 rose to 83,000 units, a good 17,000 short of the 1 lakh target. It is also believed that those who have only one vehicle usually don’t buy EVs. Those who have two or more, are more likely to go for an EV. The Golden Quadrilateral (GQ) is the widest highway network. It connects the four metros of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai apart from a few industrial, agricultural and cultural hubs. Two other major links are the North-South Corridor that connect Srinagar and Kanyakumari and the East-West Corridor which runs through Silchar and Porbandar.