Electric two-wheelers maker Ather Energy has said that the EV industry is now established so the market can do without subsidies like the Prime Minister Electric Drive Revolution in Innovative Vehicle Enhancement (PM E-DRIVE).
Many State governments are also giving subsidies from their side so the sales can even do without the Centre’s subsidies, Ravneet S Phokela, Chief Business Officer, Ather Energy, told businessline.
“ In any case this (PM E-DRIVE) was supposed to go away last year. We had planned for it not to be there. It’s just that government has extended it given the tailwind that it was seeing for just last one push. So, the industry had anyway modelled not getting it in their financials as had we…the industry is in stage where you don’t need subsidies to be self-sustaining…the only ask that we have is that the policies such that it provides a level playing field for every kind of player,” Phokela said.
He explained that the schemes such as PM E-DRIVE is same for every original equipment manufacturer (OEM), that is passed onto the customers. But, on the suppliers side there is production linked incentive (PLI) scheme, where some players have, but some players don’t and that’s been a challenge where companies have said that there should be an equal opportunity for all, which is not yet the case.
The PM E-DRIVE was launched in October 2024 till March 2026. However, it has been extended till March 31, 2028. “The PM E-DRIVE with an outlay of ₹11,900 crore, is being implemented from April 1, 2024 till March 31, 2028, for faster adoption of EVs, setting up of charging infrastructure and development of EV manufacturing ecosystem in the country,” the Ministry of Heavy Industries said through a Gazette notification on August 10.
The Scheme aims to incentivise 45,79,120 electric two-wheelers (e-2Ws) with a budget outlay of ₹2,767 from the total outlay of the Scheme. Only e-2Ws equipped with advanced batteries qualify for the demand incentive, with incentive of ₹5,000 per kilowatt hour (kWh) battery and capped at ₹10,000 per vehicle. Vehicles with ex-showroom prices up to ₹1.50 lakh are eligible for the incentives under the Scheme.
Meanwhile, Phokela said Ather Energy was going through excess demand with 50-60 per cent of the demand are in waiting period of 45-50 days because of production constraints in its present factory in Tamil Nadu.
The Tamil Nadu factory has a capacity of around 30,000-35,000 units a month, and therefore, the new plant in Maharashtra, which will start from December would only help meet the demand. It is expecting of doing around 42,000 units a month from the new plant so Ather will have around 77,000 units a month by early next year.
The company sold 28,757 units of e-2Ws in the domestic market in August, which was a year-on-year (y-o-y) growth of 50 per cent as compared with 19,210 units in August 2025. It ranked fourth in the ranking when the industry sold 1,83,204 units (y-o-y growth of 67 per cent) as compared with 1,09,673 units in the corresponding month last year.
Published on September 26, 2026
