new delhi transport minister nitin gadkaris stern warning to the auto industry to hasten the switchover to electric vehicles or face consequences poses a mammoth challenge how to move from almost 99 petrol or diesel engine capacity to pure batterypowered ones india saw production of nearly 25 crore vehicles in 201617 comprising motorcycles scooters cars suvs threewheelers and commercial vehicles the challenge is to shift this entirely to electric in roughly 13 years by 2030 it involves development of products and a robust and dependable supplier base which will require largescale investments as that happens existing capacities and many models under development may have to be shelved i dont think all of a sudden millions of cars can be converted to electric maruti chairman r c bhargava told toi a customer has to get used to the idea of an electric car it will be necessary to keep a close watch on the customer sentiment maruti currently has an engine capacity of nearly 15 lakh per annum and its parent suzuki is now in the process of setting up a 5lakhcapacity engine plant in gujarat we need a clearer roadmap then we can plan our future investments clearly bhargava said in 201617 india produced nearly 38 lakh fourwheeled passenger vehicles and 2 crore twowheelers including those made for exports commercial vehicles production was around 8 lakh gadkari told the industry to not only make electric cars but also get the clean fuel technology on buses three and twowheelers rakesh srivastava director at hyundai india welcomed the governments intention but said there would be challenges in the transition hyundai has a capacity for around 7 lakh engines annually and srivastava said this runs the risk of becoming idle there is a sizeable big investment that has been made for the engine plant na tectonic shift towards electric vehicles will bring in a new set of challenges towards utilisation of the current capacity of engines as well as investments towards electric the government has said that companies need to work on electric vehicles and technologies immediately so that there is no sudden pressure towards 2030 by when it expects the entire fleet to move over to cleaner drivetrains the auto industry is already working to migrate to the stricter bs6 emission norms that kick in from 2020 the minister nearly threatened us on thursday that the government will bulldoze its way if petrol and diesel engine vehicles are not replaced by electric in the coming years i want to ask him what happens to my existing engine capacity of lakhs of units per year should i just scrap all that capacity said the ceo of one of the big automobile companies on the condition of anonymity vishnu mathur dg of siam said auto companies have been making efforts to work on electric vehicle technology since 2011 by pankaj doval tnn published on sep 9 2017 at 0756 am ist telegram facebook copy link be the first one to comment