One of the earliest expressway projects in India was the golden triangle expressway connecting the tourist circuit of Delhi-Agra-Jaipur. The project was completed years before the National Highway Development Project (NHDP) was announced in late 1990s. It is only appropriate that the government has planned India’s first National Highway for Electric Vehicles in this golden triangle. Last week, a trial run of NHEV was conducted on a 248km highway between Delhi and Jaipur.
Agra-Delhi-Jaipur will be the first 500km EV corridor programmed and to be operated by Advance Services on Social and Administrative Reforms (ASSAR). ASSAR would be operating 12 such corridors marked by the Union Power Ministry. On all these corridors, vehicles, chargers, civil & electrical infrastructure, fleet & station utilities and all other components would be engaged together on Annuity Hybrid E-Mobility (AHEM) model with single capex spend from PSUs and Banks.
Agra-Delhi-Jaipur NHEV marks the beginning of an exciting journey towards the goal of full Zero Emission Transportation (ZET) over the next 3 decades.
Recently, India’s premier policy research institution, NITI Aayog, and RMI, an independent nonprofit that transforms global energy systems through market-driven solutions, published a detailed report outlining a roadmap for achieving complete ZET in the freight road transport sector by the year 2050. The report titled “Transforming Trucking in India – Pathways to Zero-Emission Truck Deployment” highlights the roadmap for making India a crucial player in the inevitable transition to zero-emission freight vehicles.
The key points highlighted in the report include the following:
1. ZETs can lead to sustained logistics cost savings. Transportation costs are a major driver (62%) of overall logistics costs in India, accounting for 14% of India’s GDP.5 Since diesel fuel costs account for the overwhelming majority of transportation costs, ZET adoption can dramatically lower associated fuel costs by up to 46% over the vehicle's lifetime, with broad implications for the Indian economy.
2. A robust domestic ZET market can transform India into a global green hub for battery manufacturing. ZETs would be a significant source of demand for domestically produced batteries (up to 4,000 gigawatt-hours [GWh] cumulative through 2050), supporting and underpinning the National Energy Storage Mission and providing the impetus for the nation to become a low-cost and low-carbon manufacturing hub.
3. If produced at scale, the total cost of ownership (TCO) for ZETs in the MDT segment can be less than diesel trucks, and TCO parity can be reached in the HDT segment by 2027. Currently, ZETs have a higher upfront cost compared to diesel trucks, but ZETs also have significantly lower per-kilometre operating costs.
4. With supportive policies ZETs can achieve an 85% sales penetration by 2050. With cost competitiveness, and technology maturity, nearly 9 in 10 trucks sold in 2050 can be ZETs
5. ZETs can help shift India off oil import dependency, supporting the vision of a self-reliant India. Today, road freight accounts for more than 25% of oil import expenditures—and is expected to grow over 4x by 2050. ZET adoption can eliminate a cumulative total of 838 billion litres of diesel consumption by 2050, which would reduce oil expenditures by ₹116 lakh crore through 2050.
6. Widespread ZET adoption could reduce cumulative trucking particulate matter (PM) and nitrous oxide (NOx) pollution by ~40% by 2050, substantially improving air quality in India. Today, trucks represent just 3% of the total vehicle fleet (including both passenger and freight) yet are responsible for 53% of PM emissions.6 A purposeful transition to ZETs can lead to considerable improvements in air quality and benefit citizens’ public health.
7. Widespread ZET adoption could reduce annual trucking carbon emissions 46% by 2050, lowering the nation’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The trucking sector is responsible for one-third of transport-related CO2 emissions in India. A determined transition to ZETs can lead to 2.8–3.8 gigatonnes of cumulative CO2 savings through 2050, which is equal to or greater than India’s entire economy-wide annual GHG emissions today.
8. The early state of the overall ZET market in India requires a coordinated ecosystem approach spanning the public and private sectors. Such an approach can help overcome challenges such as the upfront capital needed to make the ZET transition through a combination of finance, technology, infrastructure, and policy strategies.
Indubitably, this remarkable transformation to ZET will present a once in a century type investment opportunity for both businesses as well as investors.
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