India needs cheaper EVs and more local parts, heavy industry minister says

India has to make electric vehicles cheaper and build more of them at home. That was the message from the Union heavy industry minister, whose comments were reported by evinfrastructurenews.com on Tuesday.

The minister said the country's EV sector still leans too heavily on imported components and that localisation is the missing piece. Cost competitiveness came up as the other half of the problem. Electric cars, scooters and buses remain priced above their petrol and diesel equivalents, and that gap keeps buyers away.

India's EV market has grown fast in some segments. Electric two-wheelers and three-wheelers have found takers in cities and small towns, helped by state subsidies and lower running costs. Cars have been slower to follow. High battery prices, limited charging points and a thin supply chain of local parts all play a part.

Why localisation matters

Cells, magnets, motors and power electronics are the expensive bits of an EV. Much of that is still shipped in, mostly from China. The minister's point is simple: if India makes more of these parts at home, prices fall and the country depends less on imports.

Several schemes already aim at this. The production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme for auto and auto components, the PLI for advanced chemistry cell batteries, and the PM E-DRIVE programme all push domestic manufacturing and EV adoption. Firms such as Tata Motors, Ola Electric, Ather and Mahindra have announced localisation plans of their own.

None of that has made EVs cheap yet. Battery packs alone can account for a third or more of an electric car's price. Local cell making is still at an early stage, and scale takes time.

What the minister did not say

The report did not carry specific targets, deadlines or new policy announcements. No fresh subsidy was unveiled. The minister's remarks read as a nudge to industry and a signal that the government wants both cheaper vehicles and deeper domestic supply chains.

That leaves the hard questions open. How much of an EV's value chain can India localise in the next few years? Will import duties on components rise or stay? And can local manufacturing scale fast enough to bring prices down without another round of subsidies?

For now, the direction is clear. Cheaper EVs, more made-in-India parts. The minister's comments add to a debate that has been running in Indian auto circles for a while, and they put the government's expectation on record.