International reporting
New Delhi: the most polluted capital in the world wants to go electric
Audio 02:31
Rony Kumar, a food delivery man in New Delhi, recently started riding electric scooters because it is cheaper than using gas-powered ones.
© RFI/Sébastien Farcis
By: Sébastien Farcis Follow
5 mins
For the fourth consecutive year, New Delhi has just been ranked as the most polluted capital in the world.
Vehicles are the primary culprits.
The local government has therefore launched an aggressive policy of converting transport to electric.
And it's starting to work, as more than 12% of new vehicles registered in the Indian capital are now electric
Advertisement
Fluorescent green helmet screwed on the head, Rony Kumar stops his scooter next to the door of a restaurant in the south of New Delhi, and grabs in one hand a bag containing a hamburger.
It restarts quickly, in surprising silence.
Rony is one of the thousands of food deliverers who hurtle down the avenues of New Delhi every day, but his scooter is different: it sports a green license plate.
He is electric.
“
I've been renting this scooter for two months, and it's much cheaper than using the petrol ones!
he confides.
And it makes no noise, that's good
.
“Make this city more livable”
Each month, this young delivery man spends 5,000 rupees (60 euros) on rental and 500 rupees (6 euros) to recharge, from his home, the two batteries of his scooter, which last him all day.
“
Other delivery people spend
6,000 rupees (71 euros) per month, just on petrol!
“, he assures.
A gap, and an attractiveness for electric, which are only growing, because the price of gasoline in New Delhi has increased by nearly 10% in two weeks due to the surge in world prices.
Rony Kumar rents his green scooter from Zypp, one of the many electric mobility start-ups that have emerged in New Delhi in recent years.
Zypp manages to rent so cheaply, among other things because its fleet of 3,000 scooters is used at more than 90%.
With an operating margin of 25% on its rentals, the company founded in 2017 would already be profitable.
“
There is a huge demand,
explains Akash Gupta, co-founder and director of Zypp
.
All delivery companies want to convert their vehicles to electric.
Our goal is therefore to make electric transport affordable, to make this city more livable.
»
Traffic drives through a blanket of smog, caused by a mixture of pollution and fog in New Delhi, India.
(Illustrative image) AP - Altaf Qadri
An aggressive electric conversion plan
For the fourth consecutive year, New Delhi has just been ranked as
the most polluted capital in the world
by the Swiss organization IQAir.
The annual concentration of fine particles is 85microns/m3, far ahead of the second capital, Dhaka (78.1), and 17 times higher than the level recommended by the World Health Organization.
About a third of this pollution is caused by vehicles, two-thirds of which are two-wheelers.
In August 2020, the government of the Delhi region therefore launched an aggressive plan to convert all vehicles to electric: purchase subsidies, scrapping bonus, exemptions from road tax or vehicle registration, extension of the public charging network… And it seems to be working: in March, 12.6% of new vehicles registered in the capital were electric, an increase of 20% per month.
One of the fastest adoptions in India – though EVs still only make up 1% of New Delhi's 12 million vehicles.
► To read also: India: suffocated by pollution, New Delhi takes emergency measures
After the incentives, the government now wants to speed up the transition.
A directive in preparation
specifically targets “aggregators” of delivery and taxi services, such as Amazon and Uber.
This text plans to require that 50% of these companies' motorcycles and 25% of their cars and trucks run on electric power by the end of March 2023. A major effort for these companies, commensurate with their presence on the roads of the capital.
“
We are working with this sector to facilitate the transition and we can delay its application for a few months if necessary.
But we will apply this measure,
assures Jasmine Shah, the deputy director of the commission in charge of this electrical transition in the government
.
E-commerce company Flipkart has already promised that all of its vehicles will be electric by 2030
.
This shows that some companies are ready for this transition.
Those who are just reacting will have to do business outside of Delhi.
Everyone must understand that the health of the people of Delhi is the priority of the government.
»
A charging network to be developed
The transition is slower for individual cars.
Four-wheelers represent only 5.4% of electric vehicles registered in February, far behind two-wheelers (59.4%) and utility three-wheelers and taxi-rickshaws (30.3%).
Electric cars remain expensive and the charging network is limited to the gates of New Delhi.
It is therefore impossible to go on a weekend outside the capital with your lithium vehicle, for the risk of running out of juice.
The BluSmart taxi company has nevertheless taken the risk: it only has electric taxis.
Its fleet of 1,000 cars can only cover South Delhi, increasing by 300 vehicles per month.
And to avoid breaking down, BluSmart has developed its own charging network: ten huge stations that can each accommodate 100 cars at the same time.
"
We are now planning to open this network to personal vehicles, which will be a huge step forward
", announces Tushar Garg, the commercial director.
The Delhi government has also just awarded contracts for the installation, by the end of June, of 100 new charging stations in strategic locations, such as metro stations.
Each station will be equipped with an average of five terminals, which will double the public charging network and cut prices: the call for tenders, carried out in the form of reverse auctions, was so popular that the companies that won it have undertaken to supply electricity at 2 rupees per unit (2.2 euro cents), which is half the price offered to individuals.
Newsletter
Receive all the international news directly in your mailbox
I subscribe
Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application
google-play-badge_FR
India
Environment
Pollution