NEW DELHI — As India’s electric mobility transition accelerates with a rising influx of EV models, expanding charging infrastructure, and growing fleet experimentation, experts are urging a fundamental rethinking of the country’s transport future. Electrification, they caution, must not simply mean substituting an internal-combustion engine with a battery; rather, it must serve as a comprehensive tool to tackle persistent urban challenges, including severe air pollution, high dependence on imported oil, chronic traffic congestion, inadequate public transport, and the persistent hurdle of last-mile connectivity.

These critical insights took center stage in New Delhi on September 21, during the fourth session of the TERI–IHC Lecture and Discussion Series. Hosted at the India Habitat Centre, the event was titled “Beyond Tailpipe: Electric Mobility at the Intersection of Air Quality and Energy Security.” Industry leaders, researchers, and policymakers gathered to examine how transport electrification can actively contribute to cleaner urban environments, reduced fossil-fuel reliance, and the establishment of a truly sustainable mobility-energy ecosystem.

The session was moderated by Sharif Qamar, Associate Director for Transport and Urban Governance at The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI). The distinguished panel featured Anumita Roychowdhury, Executive Director of Research and Advocacy at the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE); Amit Bhatt, Managing Director for India at the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT); Anirudh Arun, CEO of Refex Mobility; and Naveen Gupta, Founder and CEO of Trev Mobility.

Can Electric Vehicles Solve Delhi’s Air-Pollution Problem?

Opening the discussion, Sharif Qamar contextualized the event within Delhi’s long-standing, arduous battle against air pollution. While acknowledging the notable environmental improvements achieved over past decades, he emphasized the staggering scale of the challenge that still remains. Turning to Anumita Roychowdhury, Qamar posed a pivotal question: Can electric vehicles deliver a transformative impact comparable to Delhi’s historic shift from diesel to Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) in public and commercial transport?

Roychowdhury responded with an emphatic perspective, arguing that electrification must be viewed as the logical next stage in a much broader, continuous clean-air transition. She reflected on Delhi’s progressive history of tightening vehicle-emission standards, expanding the CNG network, restricting older vehicles and heavy trucks, and implementing various other localized pollution-control measures.

“These interventions have made a difference,” Roychowdhury noted during the panel. “लेकिन even after all these improvements, we still have a very large gap to bridge to meet clean-air standards.”

For Roychowdhury, the takeaway from past policy successes is not that previous measures fell short, but rather that incremental technological improvements are no longer sufficient to secure healthy urban air. The next evolution must unequivocally focus on a transition toward zero-tailpipe-emission mobility.

“We can no longer look only at incremental improvements in vehicle technology,” she stressed. “We now have to talk about eliminating tailpipe emissions and moving towards zero-emission vehicles.”

At the same time, she underscored that electrification cannot happen in a vacuum; it must run parallel to a fundamental transformation of the broader urban transport system.

What Happens When Laboratory Emissions Meet the Real World?

Shifting the conversation to the technical realities of vehicle testing, Qamar asked Amit Bhatt to elaborate on the often-discrepant gap between standardized laboratory certification and actual on-road performance.

Bhatt pointed to substantial empirical evidence demonstrating how significantly laboratory emission tests can diverge from real-world driving conditions. Because laboratory tests are conducted under highly standardized and controlled parameters, they rarely capture the chaotic dynamics of daily urban traffic.

“There will always be some difference between laboratory and real-world emissions because laboratory tests are conducted under standardised conditions,” Bhatt explained. “The question is: what should the acceptable difference be?”

Highlighting the scope of real-world assessment, Bhatt referenced an extensive remote-sensing study conducted by the ICCT in Delhi and Gurugram. The research captured an impressive 111,712 valid tailpipe-emissions measurements across a diverse mix of vehicles, including passenger cars, taxis, two- and three-wheelers, light commercial vehicles, and buses.

Bhatt’s core argument was that public-health exposure is dictated entirely by what vehicles emit dynamically in the spaces where human beings live, work, and travel, rather than what they manage to achieve under sterile test conditions.

“If we want to understand the health impact, we have to look at what vehicles emit in the real world, not only what they emit when they are tested,” he said.

The practical implication for policymakers is clear: India must implement more rigorous, real-world emissions monitoring mechanisms alongside a long-term, strategic pivot toward zero-emission vehicle technologies.

“The only way to address tailpipe emissions completely is to move towards zero-emission vehicles, whether the technology is battery electric or another zero-emission technology that may emerge in the future,” Bhatt added.

The Taxi Problem: High Mileage, High Potential

The dialogue then transitioned to the operational realities of fleet electrification. Qamar directed his questions to Anirudh Arun and Naveen Gupta, focusing on taxis and app-based mobility services. This segment is widely regarded as crucial for national decarbonization because commercial vehicles log significantly higher annual mileage than typical privately owned passenger cars.

Anirudh Arun shared insights on how drastically the ecosystem for fleet electrification has transformed since the nascent stages of EV adoption in India. When Refex Mobility first began deploying electric fleets, the landscape was fraught with severe limitations: battery ranges were short, compatible vehicle models were scarce, and public charging infrastructure was virtually non-existent, often forcing operators to construct their own private charging depots.

“The challenge in 2019–20 was completely different,” Arun recalled. “There were very few cars available, the range was limited and there was virtually no charging infrastructure.”

Today, while the market enjoys a wider selection of vehicle models, improved driving ranges, and expanding public charging networks, operators face a different set of operational hurdles—chiefly, unpredictability.

“You know where a metro is going to go,” Arun pointed out. “With a cab, there is a lot of randomness. You can start in one part of Delhi and end up in Rohini, Noida or Ghaziabad. The question then becomes: is there enough charging infrastructure where the vehicle ends its journey?”

Consequently, successful fleet electrification demands far more than merely selling electric cars; it requires the development of robust charging networks deliberately tailored to the unpredictable operating patterns of commercial vehicles.

Corporate Mobility Offers a Different Pathway

Contrasting the random nature of app-based aggregators, Arun noted that Refex Mobility’s work with corporate clients provides a much more structured and predictable operational model. Large corporate entities typically maintain fixed employee-transport schedules, designated corporate campuses, and strict institutional sustainability targets. Under this model, vehicles can be reliably scheduled, dispatched, and charged between discrete assignments.

“Because these transportation requirements are planned, you can plan the charging cycle around them,” Arun explained.

Furthermore, corporate campuses can easily integrate dedicated charging infrastructure on-site, fostering a closed-loop ecosystem where vehicles replenish their batteries while employees carry out their workday. This dynamic demonstrates that electrification becomes markedly smoother when mobility demand, charging availability, and vehicle utilization are meticulously planned in tandem.

The Consumer Still Wants Reliability

Offering a complementary commercial perspective, Naveen Gupta discussed the experiences of Trev Mobility, an all-electric, chauffeur-driven mobility platform operating across the Delhi-NCR region.

When the company initially experimented with EVs, conventional wisdom suggested that range anxiety was the primary consumer deterrent. Trev initially assumed that deploying vehicles capable of traveling 400 to 500 kilometers on a single charge would permanently resolve the issue. To their surprise, it did not.

“আমরা started with cars offering 400–500 kilometres of range, thinking that range anxiety was the problem,” Gupta said. “But the same issue came back.”

In response, Trev shifted its strategic focus toward longer-distance and premium mobility segments, where operations could be maintained with greater predictability. Even so, charging logistics remained an ongoing operational puzzle. When multiple vehicles return simultaneously to a base station at the end of a shift, operators face sudden, massive spikes in charging demand.

“Charging is still the challenge,” Gupta noted. “When all the cars come back at around the same time, managing the charging cycle becomes difficult. You need proper route optimisation and you need to keep enough vehicles moving so that customer experience is not affected.”

What Should Government Do Next?

Bringing the conversation toward regulatory frameworks, Qamar asked the panel what policy shifts are required to successfully scale electric taxis, fleet vehicles, and other high-utilization commercial segments.

For Anumita Roychowdhury, the next phase of India’s EV journey demands heightened ambition and stronger supply-side accountability. While India has achieved commendable progress through initial government incentives and subsidy schemes, overall EV penetration still falls short of what is required to meet the nation’s ambitious climate targets for 2030.

“So far, we have largely placed the responsibility on the consumer: give consumers an incentive and ask them to buy an electric vehicle,” Roychowdhury argued. “But where is the obligation on the suppliers?”

She advocated for the introduction of explicit electrification mandates and measurable targets for vehicle manufacturers, commercial fleet operators, and public transport agencies. According to Roychowdhury, states must transition from an "EV 1.0" approach—which relies primarily on financial incentives—to an "EV 2.0" framework defined by binding mandates and strict performance targets.

The central issue, she emphasized, is not merely counting how many electric vehicles are sold off showroom floors, but ensuring that foundational elements like grid infrastructure, local financing, electricity networks, and public transport systems are comprehensively prepared to handle the surge.

The Hard-to-Electrify Frontier: Trucks

The discussion subsequently expanded to commercial cargo trucks, a heavy-duty segment historically viewed as one of the most difficult to electrify.

Amit Bhatt asserted that the fundamental economics of freight transport are beginning to shift. Although electric trucks continue to carry high upfront purchase costs, their total cost of ownership (TCO) is steadily growing competitive within specific regional hauling segments. However, substantial hurdles remain in the form of high battery manufacturing costs, low initial production volumes, and the absolute absence of heavy-duty charging infrastructure along major freight corridors.

“The biggest question is how we increase demand,” Bhatt said.

Crucially, generating market demand cannot be decoupled from infrastructure development. Long-distance electric freight requires strategically planned, high-capacity charging networks along key national highways.

“Where do we charge? How do we develop the highway infrastructure? Do we identify particular highways first, or do we identify nodes and connect those nodes? That is the next question we need to solve,” Bhatt noted, framing truck electrification as the next major frontier for India’s clean transport sector.

The Economics of Electric Fleets

Addressing commercial viability, Anirudh Arun emphasized that any new technology must ultimately make sound economic sense to survive in the market. He pointed out that CNG achieved widespread dominance in India’s taxi sector only because decades of dedicated scale and supportive infrastructure development successfully drove down operational costs, establishing a formidable economic benchmark that EVs must now contend with.

“The best technology should ultimately win through economic sense,” Arun said. “There is only so much you can do to force a particular technology. People will adopt it when the economics work.”

Simultaneously, he argued that the hidden environmental and public health costs associated with conventional fossil-fuel technologies must be accurately factored into transport economics. Because commercial vehicles exhibit unusually high utilization rates—with taxis logging several hundred thousand kilometers over their operational lifespans—their cumulative environmental impact vastly outweighs that of privately owned cars. This reality elevates the strategic importance of prioritizing fleet electrification.

Financing is the Other Half of the Equation

Highlighting an additional structural barrier, Naveen Gupta pointed to the complexities of securing institutional financing for electric commercial assets. While electric vehicles offer significantly lower running costs, their elevated upfront sticker prices create a heavy capital requirement for fleet operators. Compounding this, traditional banks and financial institutions often hesitate due to prevailing uncertainties surrounding the long-term residual value of electric vehicles and their battery packs.

“The financial ecosystem is not yet completely comfortable with electric assets because one important factor is difficult to measure: the residual value of the vehicle and the battery,” Gupta explained.

Establishing standardized mechanisms to track battery health, degradation rates, expected operational life, and accurate residual values would greatly assist lenders and operators in mitigating financial risk. Without such supportive financial frameworks, lower operational savings alone may not be enough to overcome initial capital acquisition hurdles.

From EV Adoption to Mobility Transformation

Concluding the session, moderator Sharif Qamar reiterated the central thesis of the day’s discussions: moving far beyond a narrow focus on the tailpipe.

The expert panel demonstrated that while electric vehicles are vital instruments for cutting tailpipe emissions and curbing petroleum imports, true urban sustainability requires a holistic transformation. This includes upgrading mass public transit networks, building safe walking and cycling infrastructure, optimizing last-mile connectivity, expanding robust charging grids, securing accessible fleet financing, enforcing real-world emissions monitoring, and maintaining long-term policy stability.

Above all, the panel agreed that cities must fundamentally rethink their approach to urban mobility.

Illustrating this point with a personal anecdote, Anirudh Arun recounted how he recently opted for the metro over a taxi when facing a congested airport trip. The journey proved surprisingly fast and cost only a fraction of a cab fare.

“Public transportation and mass mobility have to be encouraged in our cities,” Arun reflected. “People have to start feeling good about taking the bus or taking the metro.”

Ultimately, the overarching objective of India’s transition is not merely to swap every petrol and diesel vehicle with a battery-powered alternative. Rather, it is to systematically reduce unnecessary vehicle kilometers traveled in the first place, while ensuring that the essential journeys remaining are powered cleanly and sustainably.