Campaign to run down electric vehicles upsets Piyush Goyal

New Delhi, Sep 8: Union Minister Piyush Goyal expressed disappointment over some companies running a campaign to run down electric vehicles to promote their hybrid cars in India.

Speaking here at the Global Mobility Summit 'MOVE', the minister alleged that the companies promoting hybrid vehicles "want us to settle for the second best".

"I am extremely sad that there is a campaign going on to promote hybrid cars in this country and the campaign is trying to run down electric vehicles in order to promote hybrid cars," the minister for coal and railways said.

"The sad part is that the campaign is being run by companies which don't make electric cars. To sell their hybrid cars they are willing to compromise with the best. They want us to settle for the second best just (because) they don't make electric cars," he added.

Goyal also urged those companies to manufacture electric cars and come to the Indian market if they wanted a share of the pie of the big opportunity in India.

"Gone are the days that India will settle for anything second best. We want nothing but the best," he said.

Stating that he was the owner of two hybrid cars, the minister said though they are lovely and beautiful cars there was "no saving whatsoever."

"Must be saving my petrol 10 or 15 per cent," he added.

"So to my mind let's look for the best...(and) move out of the psychology and psyche of subsidies and grants and government hand holding everything," he said.

The aim, he said, should continue to be that India moves to a completely 100 per cent manufacturer of electric vehicles by 2030.

"We should look at engaging more and more to get logistics cost down to 7-8 per cent which I think is the long-term objective," he added.

The Centre, he said, has recently decided to bring all the logistics in the government under a common framework in a bid to do more integrated planning under the Ministry of Commerce.