E2W or electric two-wheelers growth in India may halt for now. Indian authorities are attempting to regulate battery quality issues caused by rapid expansion. This reaction is due to the occurrence of fire incidents in the past couple of months. These incidents led to injuries of several people and the death of six.
Nitin Gadkari, India’s minister of road, transport, and highways’ recently held a meeting with E2W OEMs. In the meeting, the minister requested the companies refrain from launching new products. This is to continue until the determination of the causes of the fire events. Additionally, the government wants OEMs to voluntarily recall an entire batch of vehicles if one from the batch was damaged in a fire event.
In April, several E2W OEMs in India recalled their products, notably Okinawa Autotech (3,215 units) and Pure EV (2,000 units). Over the weekend, Ola Electric became the latest OEM to recall 1,441 units.
According to statistics from the Federation of Automobile Dealership Association, E2W sales in India increased from 41,046 units in fiscal 2021 to 231,338 units in fiscal 2022. In addition to that, E2W sales in India will expectedly reach close to 18 million by 2030.
India’s E2W fire occurrences could be a result of the fast-growing E2W production. According to reports, companies imports entirely knocked down kits and assemble and deliver products with hardly any engineering effort. Tarun Mehta, CEO of Ather Energy, mentioned that foreign-sourced battery packs or platforms for E2W may not be suitable for the Indian environment.
Additionally, unidentified EV sector insiders claim that OEMs are pushing goods from manufacturers to consumers in order to gain market share, skipping the need for proper permits, and there are gaps for importing sub-standard cells.
Amitabh Kant, CEO of NITI Aayog, earlier spoke about the need for better regulation of cell manufacturing. He also spoke about enhancing the battery management system.
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