India has the potential to become a world leader in electric vehicles

Washington: India has the potential to become the world leader in electric vehicles production, a research by Berkeley National Laboratory and UCLA said, underlining that making the transition from diesel-fuelled trucks to electric-charged will enable the country to meet the goal of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2070.

India imports 88 per cent of the oil it uses and of the total petroleum consumed by the country’s transport sector, nearly 60 per cent used by freight trucks.

A study by the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) on Monday revealed that electric trucks would be more affordable to operate than diesel and India could become a world leader in producing electric vehicles.

The transition will also help India reduce its reliance on imported oil, improve air quality, and meet the goal of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2070, the study said.

“Electric trucks would be instrumental in enhancing India’s energy security and reducing the goods transport cost,” said Nikit Abhyankar, Berkeley Lab research scientist and author of the report “Freight Trucks in India are Primed for Electrification.”

Based on India’s current grid emissions, electric trucks would reduce greenhouse gas emissions to nine per cent from 35 per cent per kilometer compared with diesel trucks, the report said.

“India has embarked on very ambitious electrification policies prior to this,” said Deepak Rajagopal, an author of the report and a faculty scientist at Berkeley Lab and UCLA.

“We find that the time is now ripe to put targeted policies on trucking,” Rajagopal said in a statement released by Berkeley Lab.

In related research published last year, Berkeley Lab scientists determined how battery-electric trains can deliver environmental justice, cost-savings, and resilience to the US.