Abstract:

On June 30, 2022, WRI India hosted an in-person event on Decarbonizing India’s Road Freight: Towards a Cleaner, Greener, and Electric Future for Commercial Vehicles. The event was held under UPS Foundation’s “Accelerating Commercial Fleet Electrification” initiative for India. Over the course of four deep-dive sessions, held in Bengaluru, WRI India brought together more than 20 leading commercial electric vehicle (EV) manufacturers, logistics operators, financing experts, and practitioners to discuss India’s electric vehicle transition trajectory. The stakeholders, representing the commercial vehicle ecosystem, deliberated on the opportunities and challenges in scaling up commercial freight electrification in the country. The event underscored the tremendous growth in urbanization and e-commerce activity in India and the corresponding rise in emissions, which accounts for the majority of India’s total transport emissions. One of the important insights of the session was that with its rapidly evolving domestic ecosystem and significant freight movement corridors, India is well positioned to lead the electrification of commercial vehicles and policy support is necessary to ensure an accelerated transition.