The coordination puzzle staring at India’s EV ambitions

**Akshara** (0:04)
In today's episode, we'll break down two important stories. First, we'll talk about the coordination puzzle staring at India's EV story. And then we'll talk about the second coming of MicroMax. Welcome back to The Daily Brief by Ziruda, where we cut through the noise to help you understand what's actually happening in the most important stories from business and markets. I'm your host Akshara, and today is Thursday, 9th July.
Coming to the first story. So a few weeks ago on our subtext podcast, we sat down with Zora Khan, the founder of IPEC, a Bangalore-based company that designs and manufactures EV chargers for India's leading two- and three-wheeler makers.
Now, everyone knows about India's subsidy architecture. PME drive, state-level incentives, the GST differential versus petrol cars. But one of the key points of discussion that stuck with us well after that chat had little to do with it. It was that India's EV transition isn't just about getting our manufacturing policy right. For instance, here's what she said about India's grid.

**Zora Khan** (1:08)
But I think what India has is a distribution problem, right? And that's where the disc arms and a lot of these players do come into the picture.
But this distribution, which is mainly the 11 kV and the 415 volt lines, right? That's what actually connects the grid to, let's say, your neighborhood. Right now, a lot of these lines are overloaded. For example, transformers, which are serving these residential areas, were probably installed for requirements for maybe 10 years ago or a long time ago. So they are overloaded, they need to be upgraded. Even, for example, the air conditioning loads that are coming into effect right now will be causing a strain on the grid, let alone, let's say, EV charging coming into the picture.

**Akshara** (2:02)
So when we dug deeper, we realized that electricity itself is just one part of the EV story. Think about it. For one, charging stations need a lot of land, so land acquisition becomes a factor. Each state is in control of its own transport, but they'll have to coordinate when it comes to charging infrastructure.
And India needs all of this to happen at roughly the same pace because the vehicles are already here. India sold nearly 25 lakh EVs in FY26, but every one of those vehicles has to plug into a grid, at a station, on a piece of land, and the policies governing those three things were never designed to talk to each other.
This story is about those frictions that exist between some of the crucial parts of India's EV policy that don't have much to do with EVs, but couldn't be more important to our EV ambitions.
Let's first examine the state of electric freight. See, India's EV push has overwhelmingly focused on passenger, two-wheelers, and three-wheelers, and understandably so, given that they make up the vast majority of vehicles on Indian roads. But freight is just as important. Medium and heavy-duty trucks make up just 2% of India's vehicle fleet, but they contribute around 40% of all road transport emissions. So if we want the EV transition to matter to reducing emissions, electrifying freight has to be a priority. Yet, it's still a policy afterthought. Of the nearly 1.8 lakh public charging stations India has, only about 9,000 of them can charge a heavy-duty truck. But what makes freight a unique problem is that, unlike passenger vehicles that are mostly used within a city, a long-haul truck crosses multiple state borders in each trip. Its success depends fundamentally on coordination between states. But each additional crossing of a state border is emblematic of how difficult this is. Let's start with the money. Now, under India's Constitution, transport is a state subject. So that means, EV incentives like purchase subsidies, registration fee waivers, motor vehicle tax exemptions are set state by state. For instance, Maharashtra's 2025 EV policy offers purchase subsidies of up to Rs 20 lakh per electric truck for the first 1,000 heavy-duty goods carriers. Meanwhile, Madhya Pradesh offers 100% motor vehicle tax and registration exemptions. But a poorer state will simply not have the same kind of freedom. Very few states have incentives for heavy-duty, zero-emission trucks. And fleet operators in these states will face little reprieve compared to Maharashtra or Madhya Pradesh. Moreover, the vast majority of India's trucking sector is made up of small operators. About 75% own fewer than 5 trucks, and around 70% run on demand without formal long-term contracts. And these are cash-dependent businesses with paper-thin margins. On top of this, there's the charging infrastructure itself. So, long-haul trucks can't use the slow or moderate chargers that work for passenger cars. They need high-power DC chargers to avoid transit delays. But upgrading a single highway site to support 500kW of charging capacity can cost a few crores in capex and grid infrastructure upgrades alone.