India Registered 22.7 Lakh Electric Vehicles in 2025 and 18.96 Lakh in the First Seven Months of 2026, but Its Battery Cell Scheme Has 1 GWh Installed Against 40 GWh Awarded

India registered 22,70,346 electric vehicles in calendar 2025 and 18,95,803 from January to July 2026, according to EVreporter’s tallies of the Vahan dashboard. Vahan is the vehicle registration database of the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways. A lakh is 100,000, so the 2025 total is 2.27 million, 16.3 percent more than the 19,52,799 EVreporter counts for 2024.

EVreporter puts the electric share of automobile sales at 8 percent for 2025. A Press Information Bureau (PIB) backgrounder of 5 August 2026 gives 8.26 percent for the financial year 2025-26, April 2025 to March 2026, and names no source for it. The ministry’s portal showed 10,15,196 electric registrations in 2022, the figure Minister of State Krishan Pal Gurjar gave the Lok Sabha on 21 March 2023.

Registrations are not sales

Vahan records vehicles registered. A MaxAbout report of 6 October 2026 notes that wholesale figures track vehicles dispatched to dealers, registration figures track vehicles recorded in the registration system, and that stock movement and registration timing can make the two differ month to month.

EVreporter’s 2025 count, taken from the dashboard on 2 January 2026, leaves out Telangana and low-speed electric two-wheelers. Its 2026 count also leaves out low-speed two-wheelers. The same dashboard pulled on different days gives different totals: two compilations of September 2026 electric car registrations, dated 1 and 2 October, show 35,948 and 35,995.

Trackers also define the market differently, and the periods differ. The International Energy Agency (IEA) puts India’s 2025 electric car sales at about 165,000, against 1,76,560 in EVreporter’s count. Shailesh Chandra, president of the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM), said on 3 September 2026 that EV registrations were 3.5 million in FY26 and 1.9 million in FY25. Business Today, which reported it, does not say what SIAM counts. This piece cannot reconcile the figures.

Two-wheelers, three-wheelers, cars and buses

The two-wheeler and car figures for 2025 and all the 2026 figures are EVreporter’s Vahan tallies. The three-wheeler and bus figures for 2025 are the IEA’s. The IEA gives one three-wheeler total, while EVreporter splits the segment by category, so the 70 percent and 42.9 percent shares are not comparable. L5 is the category the government treats separately from e-rickshaws and e-carts.

The newest month is September 2026. Nuvama’s compilation of Vahan data, reported by Autocar Professional on 1 October, has 2,03,411 electric two-wheelers registered, 11.4 percent of all two-wheelers, and 35,948 electric passenger vehicles, 8.3 percent of the market. April to September brought 11,08,606 electric two-wheelers (up 73 percent) and 1,91,751 electric passenger vehicles (up 89 percent). That half-year total is already above the 1,76,560 electric cars EVreporter counts for all of 2025, though the two tallies are built differently.

Who sells them

For two-wheelers, Autocar Professional’s April to September 2026 shares are TVS Motor 26.1 percent, Bajaj Auto 22.8, Ather Energy 16.2, Hero MotoCorp 11.1 and Ola Electric 7.7, with Ola at 85,634 units. Ola’s September share was 6.6 percent, on 13,449 units. EVreporter reported in January that Ola’s 2025 registrations fell 51 percent, to fourth place.

For cars, the same period gives Tata Motors 39.9 percent (76,580 units, up 102 percent), Mahindra 22.8 (43,677, up 120 percent), JSW MG Motor 17.4 (33,279, up 12 percent) and VinFast 5.6 (10,824). MG’s September share was 14.5 percent, against 25.9 percent in September 2025, while Tata held 41 percent.

The subsidies, and what has been paid

FAME-II, the earlier scheme, ran from 1 April 2019 to 31 March 2024 with Rs 11,500 crore. A Lok Sabha reply of 3 February 2026 says it had incentivised 16,16,215 vehicles by 26 January 2026 (14,28,882 two-wheelers, 1,64,718 three-wheelers and 22,615 cars) and paid out Rs 6,558.19 crore.

PM E-DRIVE was notified on 29 September 2024 with Rs 10,900 crore for two years, and it absorbed the Electric Mobility Promotion Scheme of April to September 2024. The Gazette of India notification of 10 August 2026 raised the outlay to Rs 11,900 crore, set 31 March 2028 as the end date for every segment, and raised the cap on supported electric two-wheelers from 24,79,120 to 45,79,120. The e-two-wheeler fund is Rs 2,767 crore. PIB’s factsheet of 1 October 2026 gives the rate as Rs 2,500 per kWh of battery, capped at Rs 5,000 a vehicle, for models priced up to Rs 1.5 lakh ex-factory. The L5 three-wheeler segment closed on 26 December 2025 after reaching its target.

By 27 January 2026 the scheme had incentivised 16,56,269 vehicles and paid Rs 1,851.97 crore. Of that, Rs 1,177.24 crore went to 14,31,067 two-wheelers, about Rs 8,200 each by this piece’s arithmetic. FAME-II paid Rs 4,911.81 crore for 14,28,882 two-wheelers, about Rs 34,400 each. The reply does not say whether every claim has been settled. PIB’s factsheet counts vehicles sold under PM E-DRIVE instead, 26.59 lakh by June 2026, a different measure from vehicles incentivised.

Bus deployment lags the allocations. PM E-DRIVE allots Rs 4,391 crore for 14,028 electric buses, and 13,800 are assigned to seven cities. As of 30 June 2026, Hyderabad had signed concession agreements for 915 of its 2,000 and Surat for 600. Under FAME-II, 5,197 electric buses had been deployed against 6,862 supported.

Two other schemes cover manufacturing. The production-linked scheme for autos (PLI-Auto), with Rs 25,938 crore, had paid Rs 2,377.56 crore by 26 January 2026, of which Rs 2,319.88 crore went to electric vehicle makers. The scheme for electric car makers (SPMEPCI), notified on 15 March 2024, asks applicants for at least Rs 4,150 crore of investment and local content of 25 percent by year three and 50 percent by year five. The IEA says it lets selected firms import higher-priced cars at 15 percent duty for five years, and that several delayed joining in 2025.

Cells: 1 GWh installed, 40 GWh awarded

The PLI scheme for advanced chemistry cells has Rs 18,100 crore for 50 GWh, a measure of battery capacity. The ministry told the Rajya Sabha on 13 February 2026 that 40 GWh had been awarded to four firms, with 1 GWh installed, all of it by Ola Cell Technologies out of 20 GWh awarded to it. The firms reported Rs 3,237 crore of investment by 31 December 2025.

The ministry listed the obstacles as limited technology, a skills gap, reliance on imported equipment and a lack of upstream materials such as cathode, anode and electrolyte. Wood Mackenzie said on 20 August 2026 that India had 2 GWh of commissioned cell capacity, against 2,695 GWh for China, and that locally made cells are expected to cost 25 to 40 percent more than imported ones. That report was about grid storage tenders. None of the ministry replies cited here gives an import bill for cells.

Charging: 29,151 and 52,718

A Lok Sabha reply of 10 February 2026 gave 29,151 public charging stations, from Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL). A reply of 21 July 2026 gave 52,718 from the BHEL portal, 16,561 of them with fast chargers for cars. That is 23,567 more in five months, and neither reply says whether the stations are new or the count widened.

The ministry allocated Rs 912.50 crore for charging under FAME-II and Rs 2,000 crore under PM E-DRIVE. PIB’s October factsheet says Rs 851 crore had been approved for 8,147 chargers with three oil companies and 10 states by 28 September 2026. Solar capacity, one source of that electricity, is counted in our solar numbers piece, and the railway’s own switch from diesel is covered in how it electrified its broad gauge network.

Against China and Europe

The IEA’s Global EV Outlook 2026, published in May, puts India at nearly 4 percent of car sales in 2025, with volume up 75 percent. China sold more than 13 million electric cars, almost 55 percent of its market. Europe sold 4.2 million, 28 percent, and the United States was just under 10 percent. One in four cars sold worldwide was electric.

About 60 percent of India’s electric cars were built in the country, mainly by Tata and Mahindra, the IEA says. It calls India the largest electric three-wheeler market and the second largest for two-wheelers, where sales rose 5 percent to under 1.3 million, about 6 percent of the segment. PIB’s backgrounder says India aims for 30 percent of all vehicle sales to be electric by 2030.