The E-rickshaw story: Was the advent of electric mobility in India

In 2013, the Indian government announced its intention to have an all-electric fleet by 2030. But long before that happened a 3-wheeled retrofitted battery rickshaw was taking cities in India by storm.

In 2016, Lucknow was home to over 1,00,000 electric rickshaws. India has always been the largest market for three-wheelers and similar modes of transport—these vehicles provide a much-needed solution for affordable mobility across cities

In early 2010, E-rickshaw in Lucknow was launched to replace the city’s physically taxing cycle rickshaws. As an affordable and clean mode of transport that had enormous potential for first- and last-mile connectivity solutions, they offered a lucrative business model to entrepreneurs who could make them locally available at low cost.

In Lucknow, battery-powered three-wheelers were able to provide first and last-mile access for riders of the Metro—which was very well received by passengers but raised concerns among authorities due to a lack of regulation.

The Green Wheels Automobiles model was successful in many other cities, including Lucknow (the capital of the state of Uttar Pradesh), Kanpur (a major industrial city), and Gonda. In Sultanpur— a small town whose residents depended mainly on agriculture –and Gorakhpur**- an important religious center for Hindus – the idea became especially popular because it provided transportation to remote villages that lacked fixed bus routes or connections with larger towns.

After Greenwheel Automobile grew slowly in Lucknow—in the absence of a regulatory framework for registering these vehicles—it established itself as one of India’s leading car companies.

In response to growing problems like traffic congestion, the Indian government amended its Motor Vehicles Act in December 2015 and defined E-Rickshaw and E-Loader.

Despite a series of fatal accidents, increasingly frequent road mishaps and other controversies that have dogged E-Rickshaw in Uttar Pradesh, its numbers on the streets are growing at an unprecedented pace.

The lack of regulation and the sporadic expansion of these businesses have come to symbolize the yawning cracks in India’s rigid regulatory framework.

 These vehicles are often overloaded, with more than the legal (or safe) number of passengers and no faulty components.

ICAT and ARAI both control the approval of assembly lines and vehicle design permits, but due to a lack of conformity controls on production, substandard components continue being used widely.

Moreover, these E-Rikshaw in Uttar Pradesh run on batteries that successively place additional strain on the overtaxed electricity grid. a mean electrical jinrikisha takes up to 7-7.5 units of electricity, that is charged domestically, or in some cases, electricity is consumed through unregistered sources. The DISCOMs incur losses of virtually twenty lakhs per day in Lucknow alone.

Considering this situation of electrical quality in India, wherever the bulk on-road fleet is entrenched by electrical two-wheelers and E-Rickshaw in Lucknow, it’s necessary to make sure that this phase fulfills the objectives of quality and safe products. providing our interface with electrical quality has primarily started with Cost Effective E-Rikshaw, we are going to have to be compelled to address the quality/safety concern. to boot, the policy implementation method is key in driving the agenda of the transformation of conveyance modes from standard technology to electrical. this can not solely need inter-departmental coordination however it might even be necessary for varied stakeholders to rally along to attain the target. Given the distinctive position of Asian nations in terms of their demand for these vehicles and therefore the technological capability to manufacture these, it might not solely produce employment opportunities but conjointly cause self-reliance. native producing has got to accompany or maybe precede the quick ramp-up.Transforming the quality sector for various nations like India would have invariably been a mountain chain task. Hence, it’s imperative that phased mandates in cities over time for 3-wheelers might be one of the largest opportunities to maneuver to pure electrical vehicle technology. an identical iteration has conjointly been indicated through the NITI Aayog report-‘India Leaps Ahead: Transformative Solutions for All that, it’s the low-hanging fruits that require to be captured like a shot. Greenwheels’s recently launched report ‘Electric quality Paradigm Shift: Capturing the Opportunities’, in partnership with affirmative Bank, conjointly makes many policies and money recommendations to upmarket the adoption of EVS in India. The trend in EVs in the Asian nations, since 2009-10, indicates that it’s mostly the two-wheelers and three-wheelers that give a short chance or are possible to be without delay accepted within the market. However, the question remains the way to bring electrical rickshaws within the regulated orbit as this Electric Rikshaw In Lucknow has developed and enlarged consistent with the market and not by policy instruments. Therefore, it becomes necessary that policy formulation not to mention coordination among nodal agencies to observe activities at a pan-India level. This shall make sure that the present momentum doesn’t lose steam and therefore the efforts may be sustained, so sanctionative the country to attain its e-mobility vision together by overcoming the challenges displayed by Greenwheels Automobile E-Ranger.