50000 electric city buses to be auctioned off: Central Government announces plans!

 Following the success of CESL's grand challenge for 5450 buses that saw prices of electric buses fall by 40 percent over diesel and 34 percent over CNG earlier this month, the government wants to expand the ambit to smaller cities and towns. CESL will now come up with multiple tenders over the next 1 year for 50,000 buses to be deployed in 5-7 years. 

The demand for electric buses in the country is beginning to sky rocket. After the super success of CESL's mega 5,450 electric bus tender last month that received enthusiastic response from the industry and realised a cost reduction of 40% over diesel and 34% over CNG buses, the government is planning to bring in multiple tenders for 50,000 buses in the next 1 year. 

"We have state transport undertakings (STUs) at the back being incentivised and encouraged to come up with large orders for us. The bigger the lot size, the lower is the price expectation," said Mahua Acharya, MD and CEO, Convergence Energy Services Ltd (CESL), which is spearheading the process. "The next step is to take it a few notches higher to a scale that is roughly 10 times the grand challenge. The government is looking at 50,000 buses being deployed over the next 5-7 years and this time it will not be restricted to just the top 5-7 cities but to smaller towns across the country." 

While the government has been backing electric mobility for quite some time, CESL's parent body EESL's attempts at cracking the electric car a few years back was a damp squib. In electric buses however, the success of the grand challenge is being seen as a tipping point. For one, the numbers aren't small. 

For context, in fiscal 2022, around 30,000 buses were sold in the country. More importantly though, the bids that were achieved show electric buses do not need subsidies to compete with diesel or CNG.