6,600 EVs recalled by 3 manufacturers in April after fire incidents: Govt
Three manufacturers of electric two-wheelers recalled over 6,600 vehicles in April this year, minister of state of heavy industries Krishan Pal Gurjar told the Lok Sabha on Tuesday, responding to a question on the incidents of fire involving electric scooters and the action taken by the government.The minister said incidents of fire in electric vehicles were reported in Tamil Nadu in March and Andhra Pradesh in April. In all these cases, the ministry of road transport and highways (MoRTH) has sent notices to the chief executives of the manufacturers concerned. Gurjar said a total of 6,656 electric two-wheelers have been recalled by manufacturers. Okinawa recalled 3,215 units of vehicles on April 16, Pure EV recalled 2,000 units of vehicles on April 21 and Ola Electric recalled 1,441 units of vehicles on April 23, the minister said.The minister, asked about the impact of the fire incidents on the sale of electric vehicles, said according to the statistics available on the Vahan portal, “there is no downtrend in the sale of EVs.” “Testing of components for EVs is done as per relevant standards, as specified in Rule 126 of the Central Motor Vehicles Rule, 1989 to ensure compliance. Based on the information of fire incidents available, MoRTH has issued a show cause notice to the CEOs and MDs of the concerned two wheeler electric scooter manufacturers, to explain the reasons as to why the relevant sections of the Motor Vehicles Act should not be invoked against them,” the minister said.On April 21, union transport minister Nitin Gadkari said he has constituted an expert committee to examine EV manufacturing issues, especially those related to two-wheelers, and make recommendations to be added to the upcoming guidelines for EV manufacturers. The expert committee was constituted with independent experts from DRDO, Indian Institute of Science (IISC) Bengaluru and Naval Science and Technological Laboratory (NSTL) Visakhapatnam.In another reply, the heavy industries ministry said that till July 14, India had a total of 13.3 lakh (13,34,385) electric vehicles registered, of which Uttar Pradesh had 3,37,180 (25.2%) of EVs. Delhi stood at number two, with 1,56,393 EVs, followed by 1,20,532 in Karnataka.As for charging stations, under the FAME-I (Faster adoption and manufacturing of hybrid and electric vehicles) scheme, the ministry of heavy industries sanctioned 520 EV charging stations out of which 479 were installed as of July 1. Of this, 81 charging stations have been set up on four highways such as Delhi-Chandigarh, Mumbai-Pune, Delhi-Jaipur-Agra and Jaipur-Delhi.Under FAME-II, the ministry sanctioned 2,877 EV stations in 68 cities across 25 states/UTs, of which only 50 charging stations were installed as of July 1, the ministry said.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sweta Goswami writes on urban development, transport, energy and social welfare in Delhi. She prefers to be called a storyteller and has given voice to several human interest stories. She is currently cutting her teeth on multimedia storytelling.
…view detail
