The road ahead for private electric buses in India: case of non-urban routes
Private stage carriage bus operators across the country ferry 150 million people daily! With a majority of them operating in the non-urban sector, these operators provide critical and affordable public transport linkages across the regions. However, the rising fuel (diesel/ CNG) prices significantly threaten their current business. This issue brief finds that non-urban e-bus operations are more profitable than diesel bus operations over the duration of the life of the bus. It highlights that the high cost of finance remains a major deterrent to e-bus adoption. Additionally, other concerns like limited e-bus designs, its robustness and longevity, lack of charging infrastructure, and poor know-how of the maintenance ecosystem are highlighted by operators.
