It's time for EVs: Can India lead the pack?

EVs are becoming all the rage world over. And this time invention, innovation and enterprise seem to be on the side of the EV

By Suveen Sinha Editor, Forbes India

Published: Apr 1, 2025 11:55:26 AM IST

Updated: Apr 1, 2025 11:59:32 AM IST

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In August 1888, Bertha Benz mounted a three-wheeler with her two sons, aged 13 and 15, and set out on a 100-km journey from Mannheim to her parents’ home in Pforzheim. That horseless contraption was the world’s first practical car running on an internal combustion engine (ICE). And that journey in Southwest Germany is widely acknowledged to be the first road trip.

Along the way, Bertha Benz not only negotiated unpaved roads, but, according to a BBC documentary of 2022, used her hairpin to unclog the carburetor and garter to fix electrical issues. She got a shoemaker to fix the leather straps of the brakes and bought ligroin from pharmacies to fill the tank.

Bertha told her husband Karl, who had patented the vehicle two years earlier, how it had behaved. The lessons improved the car and gave them the confidence to present it to the world. Most importantly, the journey increased the acceptance of the ICE automobile as a reliable mode of transport, much more than horse-drawn carriage.

This is where you ask why we are recounting the story of the combustion automobile as the opening for a magazine issue about electric vehicles (EVs). The answer is simple. This is not the story of the combustion engine but of invention, innovation and enterprise. And love.

Luckily for the ICE car industry, Bertha did not fall for an EV inventor, several of whom were around at the time she, against the wishes of her wealthy family, married Karl when he was a struggling inventor. She put her dowry down in his venture. She was also with Karl in the workshop, on one occasion using her sewing machine to fix the ignition coils.

In the 19th century, inventors were working on cars riding on gasoline, steam as well as electric. The website of the United States Department of Energy chronicles that at one point, EVs were considered the best bet because they were quiet and did not emit a foul exhaust. Ferdinand Porsche, now famous as founder of the sports car company, had also developed an electric car in 1898 called the P1. Thomas Edison thought EVs were the superior technology and worked with Henry Ford on a low-cost electric car.

But the rise of the ICE car was so sudden and so widespread, especially after Ford’s Model T debuted in 1908, that it froze the EV in its tracks.

More than a century later, we are back to the days when EVs are becoming all the rage. And this time invention, innovation and enterprise seem to be on the side of the EV.

Tesla made electric cars cool. But BYD is making them far more accessible. If its new charging technology is all it is cracked up to be, purportedly needing only 5 minutes to charge a car enough to go 400 km, the Chinese company can blow Tesla out of the water.

So, where does that leave India?

We seem to be in the game. Samar Srivastava takes you deep into how ICE incumbent Mahindra, under its first non-family group CEO, is unfazed by the imminent India entry of Tesla. Manu Balachandran gives you a blow-by-blow of the drama unfolding in the Indian EV sector. And much more.

The story of the ubiquitous smartphone in the country tells us we can do well in a sector even if we did not invent it. But won’t it be nice to create things of our own? As abbreviations go, PLI works well, and so does BYD.

Best,

Suveen Sinha

Editor, Forbes India

Email: suveen.sinha@nw18.com

X ID: @suveensinha