India plans to direct taxi aggregators like Ola and Uber to convert 40.0% of their car fleet to electric by April 2026, as per a source and data of government meetings to hold talks over new policies for clean mobility.

Uber and Ola, both supported by the Softbank Group, will have to begin converting their fleets as soon as next year to accomplish 2.5% electrification by 2021, 5.0% by 2022, 10.0% by 2023 before raising it to 40.0%. Some of the taxi operators like Ola earlier tried to operate electric cars in the country, but unfortunately achieved little success because of high costs and inadequate infrastructure.

Neighboring countries such as China, the world’s top automotive market, is already at the first position in electrification by setting high EV sales targets for automotive manufacturers and providing incentives to taxi operators to increase their clean-fuel car fleets. 

In India, the sale of electric vehicles grew threefold to 3,600 in Financial Year 2018-19, but still reached only about 0.1% compared to the 3.3 million gasoline and diesel cars sold in the nation during the same period, industry data revealed. In comparison, China’s electric car sales rose by 62.0% in 2018 to reach 1.3 million vehicles.

Scooters and motorcycles purchased for commercial purposes by food joints and e-commerce businesses are also required to be electric from April 2023.