The sale of electricity for EVs in Maharashtra increased from 4.56 million units in September 2022 to 14.44 million units in July 2023 There has been a threefold increase in the sale of electricity in ten months, said the MahaVitaran CMD Lokesh Chandra.
MahaVitran is the nodal agency for providing electric vehicle charging facilities in the state. Various works are done by MahaVitran, like setting up charging stations for electric vehicles through Mahavitran or helping to set up private charging stations, providing mobile app facilities to help in charging of electric vehicles, helping the government in making policy decisions for electric vehicles.
There are a total of 3214 charging stations in the state, both public and private. If the sale of electricity for vehicles through these is taken into account, there seems a rapid increase. For vehicles, electricity sales in the state were 4.56 million units in September 2022, 6.10 million units in March 2023 and 14.44 million units in July 2023.
The number of electric vehicles in the state has increased rapidly. In 2018, 4,643 electric vehicles were sold in the state while in 2022, 1,89,698 electric vehicles were sold. As on 31 March 2023, the total number of electric vehicles in the state was 2,98,838.
Among these nearly three lakh electric vehicles, the number of two-wheelers is two and a half lakh. The number of electric buses has increased rapidly in the state. Only four electric buses were registered in the state in 2018. In the year 2022, this number increased to 336. At the end of March 2023, there were a total of 1399 electric buses in the state.
Profitable journey
Electric vehicles help save the environment and save a lot of money. A conventional two-wheeler running on petrol costs around Rs 2.12 per kilometre while an electric two-wheeler costs around 54 paise per kilometre. A petrol-powered four-wheeler costs about Rs 7.57 per kilometer while an electric four-wheeler costs Rs 1.51 per kilometre. Even the cost per kilometre of a three-wheeler is around Rs 3.2 for petrol and 59 paise for electricity.
