India Aims To Make Every New Car Electric From 2030
23rd Jun, 2017
With environmental matters still dominating international news, India is making cross-continental headlines recently. India’s government has decided that from 2030 onwards, every car sold in the country will be electric. It’s definitely a bold move, and one certain to have far reaching implications – not just for India, but for other nations too. So, what’s going on?
What’s Behind India’s Switch To Electric Cars?
India has a couple of reasons for such an ambitious move. The first and foremost one is a big problem; it’s to do with its air quality (something we’re pretty concerned about here in Britain, too). And when we say a big problem, we mean it. Estimates by Greenpeace put the annual death toll at about 1.2 million – in other words, almost as many people as those who die from cigarette smoke.
The move to electric cars is projected to cut India’s carbon emissions by 37% by 2030. We love that sort of news here at Scrap Car Network – not only is that great news for the environment, but in all likelihood it’ll save a lot of Indian lives, too.
And there are other reasons we’re going to eventually see more electric cars running through India’s scrap car processes. At the moment India is the world’s third largest oil importer, and it costs the country $150 million each year. Making the move to electric cars, on the other hand, would save India $60 billion in energy costs, while at the same time cutting down on costs for the average Indian car buyer too. We’re not surprised that the Indian people see that as a win-win!
The Indian government has gone on record as saying that they’re going to give the initiative financial support for the first two or three years, but after that the electric car market will be driven (if you’ll pardon the pun) by demand.
How Does The UK Fare In The Electric Car Market?
We’ve actually covered the UK’s electric vehicle industry before – but that was almost six months ago now, and the numbers have moved on a bit since then. Shortly after we wrote that article, the number of new electric cars registered in the UK hit a 12-year high. There are now over 100,000 of them zipping across Britain’s roads, and they now represent 1.5% of the total new car market in the UK. Charging them won’t be a problem either – there are now 12,760 charge points in locations across the country. We’re on the road to progress!
Having said that though, we’ve still got a long way to go yet. As a nation, this year we’ve already celebrated a historically low level of carbon emissions. However, that’s largely been due to the decline of the coal industry, rather than massive steps where transport emissions are concerned. It’s still a top priority for the UK government though, and with a recent push to improve air quality across the country (especially in major cities), we’ve definitely got our eyes on all the right prizes, environmentally speaking. We just need to keep pushing ourselves in the right direction.
How Does This Affect The Service From Scrap Car Network?
Well, it sort of does and sort of doesn’t. Petrol cars, diesel cars, electric cars – we’ll scrap any car here at Scrap Car Network, so in that sense, nothing changes. We’re hot on environmental initiatives though, and always have been. Every car that we process goes through a rigorous checking procedure, as we strip it right down to its skeleton to hunt for anything that can be reused, resold, or otherwise saved from the scrap heap. That way, we help cut down on unnecessary waste while extending the service life of the components themselves, giving a little something back to the local economy as we do it.
It’s not much, but you know what they say – every little helps! Our environmental stance really affects how we do business here at Scrap Car Network, but it’s not the only worthy cause we’re involved in.
You can read more about other reasons to choose us here, or if you want to get started on scrapping your car right away, just enter your car registration and postcode onto our homepage, and let’s get cracking!
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