Government of India’s national electric vehicle (EV) policy lacks spark. Recent reports suggest that the government may put a cess on fossil fuel vehicles to coax buyers to opt for electric vehicles . In a country that is power deficit, the current EV plan is a sham, and its ever-changing goalposts are doomed to failure.India’s EV policy aims to cut emissions, even though more than 70% of electricity is generated from dirty sources such as coal. With thermal power as the mainstay, more will be needed to seamlessly charge the batteries for electric vehicles, thereby denting the credibility of India’s emission-reduction goals.That notwithstanding, the plan envisages 30% EVs on India’s roads by 2030. With an existing vehicular population of more than 210 million and swelling, it’s hard to see how this transformation will happen in about a decade.Compare this with countries like Britain, chasing similar outcomes. Britain seeks to halve fossil fuel vehicles by 2030, but has just about 38 million vehicles on its roads, is power surplus, and by 2025, will eliminate coal-fired power. All of which lends some credence to its green goals.India’s planned EV journey, on the other hand, has many dead ends. Instead of developing EVs, automakers in India have been busy recalibrating vehicles to meet the Bharat Standard-VI (BS-VI) emission norms. By 2020, India will switch to BS-VI standards to cut vehicular emissions. These are in line with European guidelines.Manufacturers who have already pumped in money to meet this deadline have little incentive to rev up on EVs, which needs billions more in investment and thousands of engineering hours, despite no assured demand.Consumers will hardly be better off. By 2020, they will have to fork out far more for a BS-VI vehicle, and perhaps an additional Rs 12,000 cess, if the latest suggested proposal becomes policy.Once you dismiss this bungle as oversight, there is the question of creating a market for EVs. Even those who plan to make such vehicles are reluctant participants because of the high costs and lack of profit.There is every reason why. Existing standard lithium-ion batteries use expensive materials such as cobalt, bumping up price. In an electric car, battery performance is mostly it. Cutting corners on the battery is not an option.This is not to say carmakers from Toyota to General Motors aren’t chasing electric dreams. They are, but mostly by targeting developed countries with higher incomes and sophisticated infrastructure capabilities. India, though, is a value-conscious market and the bulk of the vehicles on its roads are entry-level ones where price is everything.GoI is hoping consumers will overcome cost hurdles through subsidies it offers. That may be so. But it’s not possible to race past inadequate infrastructure. For EVs to run smoothly, India will need assured excess power supply that can be fed to charging stations throughout the country.Even tony metropolitan areas in Delhi’s hinterland struggle with outages. Outside urban areas, power can be scatty. And in vast swathes of rural India, electrification means a supply line and an hour of power a day. Given the infrastructure bottlenecks, GoI will have to limit EV use to within the radius of charging stations, which would hardly be acceptable to most buyers. To penalise buyers for fossil fuel vehicles, while failing to guarantee power for electric vehicles, lacks wheels.The result of all of this will likely be very low take-up, despite the carrot and stick, or subsidy and cess, policy. Poor demand will damp even those automakers willing to put in the investment for building EVs, thus creating a vicious circle.In the meantime, if the government is serious about reducing emissions and encouraging cleaner vehicles, it needs to vastly improve public transport and shared mobility so that fewer commuters opt for private vehicles. It must curb the ownership of vehicles per household and make it prohibitively expensive to own more than one vehicle. It should also incentivise remote working where possible, cutting back on the need to travel.India’s shift to EVs should be kickstarted by converting intra-city public transport to green, and by generating enough surplus power through clean energy.Once it is able to deliver on these basics, it will be easier to convince all stakeholders to convert. Until then, the EV plan will remain an idea that will likely die after a few false starts.The writer is CEO, Content Pixies