“This whole concept of I’ll give everyone subsidy and rely on FAME in some sense is a good place to start. But I think it’s also a lazy way to continue going. So I think you’ll see a lot more performance-based incentives and production-linked incentives. You will still see incentives but it won’t be an easy give-out,” he said.
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Vinayak’s comments come at a time when the government has withdrawn FAME-II subsidies at the end of March, moving on to the Rs 500-crore Electric Mobility Promotion Scheme (EMPS), 2024.
Founded in 2020 by former Ather Energy executives Vinayak and Sanjay Byalal Jagannath, the company has developed a proprietary fast-charging technology that claims to fully charge a vehicle in 15 minutes. Most fast-charging options in the market only allow up to 80% charge from zero charge, and take upwards of an hour for this.
Tarun Mehta, cofounder and chief executive of electric scooter maker Ather Energy, said the overall two-wheeler EV industry would require government subsidies to continue to grow at a healthy rate, ET had reported earlier.
According to Vinayak, interoperability in charging infrastructure is good, but standardisation is bad. “The government should focus on creating safety standards but not force a standard because that will kill innovation,” he said.
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On February 20, ET reported that officials, especially from the ministry of power, have been regularly consulting with firms in the electric vehicle (EV) ecosystem to push interoperability between battery-charging standards.The company plans to install 100 charging stations in Delhi-NCR and Bengaluru this year while expanding its network in Chennai, Ahmedabad, Kolkata, and Hyderabad. It also intends to enter the intercity e-bus segment in 2024.
In December 2023, it raised $26.4 million in a funding round led by Eight Roads Ventures. It has raised $44.4 million in total so far. The company started selling its products in February 2023, and is looking to clock Rs 600 crore in revenue for calendar year 2025.