TL;DR
Most Indian-made EVs fail to meet local content requirements for the PLI scheme due to heavy reliance on Chinese imports, impeding domestic manufacturing growth.
Despite government incentives to localize manufacturing, only a small fraction of electric vehicles produced and sold in India currently meet the domestic value addition criteria of the Production-Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme. This shortfall is largely attributed to a continued high reliance on imported components, particularly from China.
Out of 46 EV models assessed, only 6 have qualified for the PLI scheme, meeting the required 50% domestic value addition (or 40% for imported battery cells). These qualifying models are primarily from Tata Motors and one from Mahindra, while other major brands like Tesla, Hyundai, BMW, and Kia reportedly exceed 60% imported content.
This dependency on imports hinders the growth of a local EV ecosystem and challenges the PLI scheme's objectives of fostering self-reliance and creating a competitive manufacturing base. The government's localization push faces hurdles due to technological gaps and the economic unviability of domestic production for certain critical components at current scales.
