Electric vehicle (EVs) sales declined 13 per cent month-on-month in February to 4,838 units — the lowest since September 2022 — according to data on the VAHAN portal of the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways.
Sales declined over 40 per cent from an all-time monthly high of 8,154 units in October, the data reveals.
In the second last month of FY23, electric two-wheelers constituted 55 per cent of the overall EVs sold. Three-wheelers sales constituted 34 per cent, and four-wheelers, 11 per cent.
The contribution of EVs in overall automotive sales also dipped to 10 per cent from 16 per cent last December.
Though the National Capital’s share of EVs in overall automotive sales is higher than the national average of 4.7 per cent, the decline has raised concerns for the Delhi government, which under its EV policy, has a target of increasing the share of EVs to 25 percent of all new vehicle registrations in Delhi by 2024.
Arvind Kejriwal also launched the Switch Delhi campaign in February 2021 to spread awareness about the environmental benefits of using EVs and making the national capital pollution-free.
Though the National Capital is performing better than the national average, experts feel it will miss its target.
“Achieving the target of 25 per cent will be difficult for Delhi but it still would be better than other states,” said Puneet Gupta, director, S&P global mobility.
The February sales numbers indicate that Delhi is still far from achieving its target.
Since the launch of the policy in August 2020, Delhi has registered 103,776 EVs till February 28, 2023. Of these, more than 62,000 EVs were registered in 2022.
An analysis of fuel-wise vehicles sold in February in Delhi shows that EV vehicles are more than diesel and CNG vehicles, according to the data.
Of the 46,210 vehicles sold during the month, 73.6 per cent were petrol, 10.5 per cent were electric, 5.2 per cent were CNG, 4.9 per cent were petrol/hybrid, 3.7 per cent were petrol/CNG, 1.9 per cent were diesel and 0.2 per cent petrol/ethanol and diesel/hybrid.