Senior officials who received the EVs refused to use them as these models doesn’t have good performance and efficiency is very poor
EVs are the future of automotive industry as they are going to replace combustion engines to reduce pollution. Even though the technology has advanced a lot for EVs, it is still not yet mainstream and has lots of road blocks. To promote electric mobility, the government decided to buy EVs from Tata Motors and Mahindra which will be used by government officials.
The vehicles will be deployed by Energy Efficiency Service Ltd (EESL) which is a public unit under Power ministry. According to a new report, senior officials who received EVs refused to use them as these models doesn’t have good performance and efficiency is very poor. The EVs models are Tata Tigor EV and Mahindra e-Verito.
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Both these vehicles are powered by 17 kw battery pack which is small compared to global standards of 27-35 kw and these small battery pack provide range of around 80-82 km in a single charge in city, which is considerably small. Another problem for these EVs is lack of charging stations as these take so much time to charge from home and the government hasn’t taken much interest to built charging stations.
The first phase of EVs was 500 units in which 350 will be supplied by Tata Motors and 150 by Mahindra. But it was delayed by EESL as they want to improve charging infrastructure and things didn’t go according to plan. The second phase of 9,500 units was expected to be delivered earlier this year but it has been postponed again.
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When enquired about this issue to EESL, they said that more than 150 EVs are currently used in Delhi and Andhra Pradesh. Tata Motors said that the company has completed production of 250 units for the second phase and it will be delivered to EESL soon. But Mahindra is currently working on a new EV which will come with better performance and efficiency.
One of the senior executive said that these top government officials get lots of money as fuel expense with their salary and if they opt for EVs they won’t get this, which is why they prefer regular car over this. EESL will begin third phase only once they get quality products which offer global level standards in performance and efficiency.