Don’t want electric cars, say government officials: Here’s why

Mahindra is working on longer-range electric cars after the cars supplied under the government contract received complaints. Senior government officials have reportedly refused to use the newly acquired electric vehicles from Tata and Mahindra. The government officials say that the cars have poor performance and have a low range.

Following the complaint from the officials, Mahindra is reportedly working on increasing the range of the e-Verito. Mahindra supplies the e-Verito under the ESSL contract, while Tata supplies the Tigor electric. The cars are exclusively used by the government officials for their daily commute. However, after several complaints, many officials have stopped using the cars.

After announcing the target of 2030 to make India an exclusive market for electric cars, government entity ESSL floated tenders for electric cars. The tender for 10,000 cars was jointly awarded to Mahindra & Mahindra and Tata Motors and both the brands started supplying the sedans earlier this year. However, the low range of the vehicles has caused a few problems for the cars.

India is yet to get an electric charging network for electric vehicles. It makes the use of electric vehicles even more limited. While a source confirmed to ET Auto that Mahindra is working to increase the range of the e-Verito, nothing official has been announced by Mahindra yet. According to the officials, both the electric sedans can do around 70-80 km on a single charge, which is not enough for their daily work.

Apart from electric vehicles, ESSL had also floated tenders for setting up 2,500 charging stations for EVs across India. There is no news on when the work will start on that. As per ESSL, only 150 electric vehicles from both the brands have been supplied till now. As per ESSL, they will deploy around 200-250 electric vehicles and the tender will be re-evaluated based on the same.

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