India's Move Towards EVs Must Be Evolutionary, Not Disruptive, Says ACMA

Automotive component makers body ACMA today said India's move towards electric vehicles must be evolutionary rather than disruptive in order to enable local industry to develop the best technologies for future. While acknowledging that electric vehicles are the future, Automotive Component Manufacturers Association of India (ACMA) President Rattan Kapur said the logical progression will be to move from internal combustion engine to hybrids and then to full battery-based vehicles.

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"On the front of mobility, we believe that the future is electric. However, the logical progression will be to move from internal combustion engine to maybe hybrids and then to full battery based vehicles," he said here at the annual convention of ACMA. He further said such an approach will enable local industry to develop the best-required technologies for future generation of vehicles. "The technological progression should be evolutionary rather than disruptive," Kapur added.

Underlining the different demands in a big market like India, he said: "One should also not lose sight that ours being a diverse country, solutions for small towns and rural areas will be much more different than those of metros and large cities."

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Calling for a long-term stable technology roadmap for the automotive industry, he said it should be "driven by a sound regulatory framework and is, therefore, the need of the hour so that the industry can invest for development as per aspirations of all shareholders".

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Yesterday, Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari had said that a Cabinet note on electric vehicles was ready that would take care of charging stations. He had warned the automobile industry to go for alternative fuel, else he would not mind "bulldozing" them in his bid to check pollution and curb imports. Kapur said the automobile and component industries were committed to protecting the environment and it might imply various drastic changes to do so. "Time has come for each of us in the industry to accept this new business environment and gear up to cater to the demands of the future," Kapur said.