[TusharK]

The government of Goa has announced that all new tourist vehicles, that includes rental cars and bikes must be electric from January 2024. Besides, existing fleet vehicles must be retrofitted with electric powertrains by June 2024.



Speaking at the Energy Transitions Working Group Meeting, Pramod Sawant, Chief Minister of Goa, said, "All new tourist vehicles, cab and bike rentals shall be EVs from January 2024, while new government light motor vehicles (LMVs) purchased from January 2024 will mandatorily be EVs. It will also be mandatory for permit holders having multiple tourist taxis, rent a bike and rent a cab operator to retrofit 30 per cent of the fleet to EV by June 2024.”

Sawant added that EV ownership in the state has increased from 0.2% to 9.4% since subsidies were introduced in 2021. The state also plans to roll out new subsidies at a time when the central government has slashed the sops offered under the FAME II scheme.

Source: Autocar

Link to Team-BHP News

[ComboCutter]

Good move. MG Comet would shine in the short Goan Roads.

My only suspect is the delayed start of this policy from January 2024. They should have made it August/September 2023.

[abaliga]

Retrofit existing vehicles to convert them to EVs? Do we have any provider who has reliable, well engineered and safe conversion kits? The way the policies on electrification are implemented are very short sighted and appear to be an effort to remain in news

[SKC-auto]

By adding the retrofit clause, they may be forcing the sale of 30% of the fleet to out-of-state operators.

This seems to be a good move; hopefully, the Tigor, OLA, and iQube models will sell massively to the tour operators.

[Bala02]

I hope renting out electric scooters does not lead to increase in accidents as some people will have difficulty in adjusting to the rapid acceleration that comes with EV. I also wonder if all hotels and places of accommodation will have charging points.

[Iconoclast]

A lot of the folks who rent out cars and bikes in Goa are not registered fleet operators. They rent out cars/bikes which have white number plates. Law enforcement in this regard is relatively lax.

Tourist taxis have a hard time agreeing to meters/ride hailing apps despite the government having tried to do it for years; there's no Ola/Uber; just the local Goamiles app. And there too; drivers routinely get threatened to take their taxis off the platform.
They are just habituated to charging a bomb to traverse relatively short distances so that they can earn their daily bread in 2-3 hours of work.

So getting them to agree to retrofit EV kits to existing cars seems too far fetched to me; especially in the absence of mass EV infrastructure.

[ToThePoint]

All this in a state which doesnt have its own power plant and relies on Western grid for electricity. And plan is to setup two coal based power plants as part of 24*7 electricity for all program

The supply is erratic with frequent power cuts throughout the day.

And then there is the cab mafia! Lesser said about them the better. I see this being delayed or rolled back similar to many of His Highness's hare-brained policies!

[lina]

Why the retrofit clause? Why do all our governments behave like this? Dont they know how hard it is to do business here?

Even though I am an EV fan, I rather have such things implemented via economic incentives rather than outright bans. The retrofit clause is terrible. You will get unsafe unreliable jugaad powertrains.

[vredesbyrd]

So basically Goa is off my list of tourist spots for 2024. Wasn't any good for my vacation needs anyway.

[windrider]

What kind of dumb idea is this? Most tourists who take two wheelers on rent will be staying at hotels/resorts etc. Where exactly are they going to find charging ports for these vehicles at those premises and won't these systems get overloaded if there are 15-20 scooters charging at once? Most of the low cost stays in Goa don't even have proper backup power in case of power cuts. What if I am traveling to Goa for a couple of days and decide to rent a scooter for local sight seeing. I will easily be covering in excess of 100-150 kms a day. I don't want to spend what little time I have waiting for my ev to get charged. Do these govt officials even think for 5 minutes before passing such stupid rules?

[lionell]

This move is not thoroughly thought through in Goa's context. Charging stations are almost non-existent here. This is going to create unnecessary chaos. Especially since there is no concrete plan to build on charging infrastructure.

Another aspect is 'deterioration', you see due to the high humidity and weather conditions infrastructure often deteriorates faster here. You see rust and mould and overgrowth everywhere especially monsoon. Heck the grand Atal Setu needs a whitewash more than often.

Also the Taxi Mafia will will be up in arms and protest against this rule. Quite rightly so. It will also encourage white plate cars to be given out as 'rent a cab' and increase the corruption behind this illegal activity.

For new vehicles, I get it, decent move. But retrofitting to electric? Excuse me. How can a yellow plate Thar be retrofitted with an electric set-up? And mind you there a ton of them here. Unless 'CM Tesla' himself has figured it out and will guide the auto world on this subject.

They should stop these shenanigans and focus on real governance.

PS: Uber has started airport drop and pickup services in Goa for the first time ever :-) and as I type this the electricty has conked off 6 times since 9am today morning, go figure :-P

[na_agrawal]

Reading this zero-brain-applied policy, I can only say one thing -

If I'm visiting Goa in 2024, it will have to be a road trip from my home to Goa in my personal, white number plate, petrol car.

Life and trip will be much easier that way

[raptor_diwan]

Bad implementation!! Soon, there might be rage or even protests by taxi operators in the city. While accepting new vehicles should be EV as they recently did in Chandigarh to meet the targets may be manageable, it will be tough for taxi operators with existing vehicles. Not everyone can afford the cost of retrofitting existing vehicles with electric powertrains or setting up a charging infrastructure with in hotel or few places.

[Axe77]

Ridiculous in its totality, specially this bit.

Besides, existing fleet vehicles must be retrofitted with electric powertrains by June 2024.

Is the entire tourist ecosystem in Goa geared up to provide EV charging? Or is this going to divide host stays that are EV capable and those which are not.

At best, they could have legislated that all "new cab" registrations are EV. Also, they could have left self drive options out of the scope perhaps.

This is what happens when you take a particular goal and seek to pursue it mindlessly. Policies that require converting / discarding perfectly running ICE vehicles into EVs are losing the wood for the trees when it comes to environmental agendas as a whole.

[pepega]

I'm not sure how well EVs will fare as tourist vehicles. EVs tend to be more expensive and fleet operators typically select the cheapest variants for fleets. Which fleet operator will pay 16 lakhs for a Nexon EV when you can get a MT Baleno for 8 lakhs? If implemented, this will drive up rental prices and further increase reliance on taxis. The less said about the reliability and affordability of taxis, the better.

Fleet operators who manage to convert will make a killing. Those are that just making ends meet currently might go bankrupt. 'The rich get richer', seems to be the official motto of most Indian provincial governments.