Will EV startups disrupt the automotive industry?

"EV startups could snatch the entire auto market out of the mouths of established players"
Amitabh Kant

In traditional times i.e. before the EV revolution started in India, the automotive industry was completely saturated, and no matter how good the product is there are very rare chances for any new player to become successful in this industry in those times. But the intervention of EVs in this industry has completely transformed the business culture. The period of 2018-19 was not the first time EVs came into the market, in the year 2011 or 2013 the Chinese electric scooters entered the Indian market but they failed to penetrate the market due to so many reasons, but the major one was the demand. In those periods the petrol/diesel prices were not that high, the environment is not dying at a faster rate, and that was not the correct timing for EVs to enter the market. But today’s conditions are worse than before and petrol/diesel vehicles are not more than a curse for both the environment and customers.

But even after so much chaos the automotive giants are not interested in electric vehicles and seeking this opportunity many startups started investing in this industry and made vehicles that are at some point of time considered to be futuristic, and concept vehicles. These startups redefined the definition of vehicles and equipped their vehicles with so many features that no one could ever think about and still there is a lot to come on its way.

This EV revolution has changed the way the automotive industry worked traditionally because now the automotive industry can never get saturated by few players in the market. There are still a lot of challenges with electric vehicles and the plus point of this industry is technology is the solution to all the problems, and for innovation in technology sky is the limit.

Now observing this trend and an upcoming situation of automotive sector the Amitabh Kant who is the CEO of NITI Ayog (National Institution of Transforming India) has call out all the automotive giants to not focusing on the EV sector. While delivering a speech at 61^st annual section of ACMA (Automotive Component Manufacturers Association) he gave many strict and though provoking statements, he said “The privately funded startups are working aggressively towards electric vehicles and if established players in automotive sectors won’t focus on making more electric vehicle they may lose a very big market of automotive industry. Because EV are inevitable whether you like it or not. And therefore, the Indian manufacturers must read the writing on the wall and capture the lead of disruptive changes”. In other words, he warned the established automotive giants about the upcoming EV revolution and advised all of them to work on their EV plans or just get out of the game.

In his speech he sort of denounced the solar power sector as our country is still highly dependent on imports from other countries in solar power sector he quoted, We don’t want to be a major importer like we are in the solar power sector and India should follow the indigenous path for manufacturing electric vehicles and their components and decrease our imports from China.”. The goals set by the chief of NITI ayog can only be possible by higher investments, technological innovations in this sector and if the established players concentrate on this industry then it’ll become easier to reach that goal.

In the same conference, he fetches everyone’s concentration towards the low value, but high-volume components used in electric vehicles he said, we should also focus on the localizing the high volume, low value products while importing them.

So this is all that the Amitabh Kant addressed in his speech, and his statement of EV startups disrupting the whole industry is truly an alarming condition for all those automobile giants who are still in their comfort zone and taking no part in EV revolution.

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