Motors built by Longmont’s UQM Technologies will soon power electric buses in India.The company announced earlier this week that it will provide high efficiency drive systems to Ashok Leyland, a large Indian commercial vehicle manufacturer.
UQM’s first foray into the country comes at a time when India’s government is pushing for more electric vehicle production to curb pollution, reported Times Call.
“They are a very, very big deal,” UQM President Joe Mitchell said to. “To be in on the ground floor of what’s happening in India is really important to us.” Last year, Indian government leaders announced the India 2030 initiative to encourage electric vehicle production.
“We are trying to introduce electric vehicles in a very big way.” India’s former energy minister Piyush Goyal said during a televised panel discussion last spring. Initially, that plan called for all new vehicles produced in the country to be electric-powered by 2030. But that lofty goal was recently scaled back.
The country is now aiming for 30 percent of new vehicles to be battery-powered by 2030, according to a report that was released on Thursday by BloombergQuint. That less ambitious goal still represents an estimated roughly 7 million electric vehicles.
India has long-grappled with the environmental and health impacts of severe pollution. A report released in January by Greenpeace called air pollution in the country a “national health emergency.”
“Severe air pollution has been disrupting everyday life in India,” the report said. But, “choices for electricity and transportation could play a major role in managing pollution levels in many parts of the country.”
UQM’s role in the efforts to make India’s air cleaner will be relatively small one at first — the company will provide electric components for 51 new Ashok Leyland buses this year. But Mitchell said he expects UQM’s presence in India to grow in coming years. “It’s hard to say what the next fleet size is going to be, but this a big first step,” he said.
Times Call reported that the firm, which already provides its technology to companies in Europe and Asia could eventually open manufacturing facilities in India. “We’ve got to be assembling and manufacturing in the regions we operate in,” Mitchell said.
