9 September 2025, New Delhi: A technical trial focused on the commercialisation of Electric Trucks started on the previous World EV Day 2024 from Chennai has today reached its rollout milestone with an impressive outcome of 1000 Electric trucks to be deployed at various freight routes of India. India’s premier tech piloting agency, Ease of Doing Business, after commercially prototyping electric cars and buses on the Delhi-Agra (2020) and Delhi-Jaipur (2022) electric highways under the Indian Government electric mobility initiative — National Highways for Electric Vehicles (NHEV) — initiated commercial prototyping of electric trucks third technical trial in participation with Transvolt Mobility on World EV Day last year brought together all stakeholders necessary to accelerate deployment, including those willing to take the challenge of policy making for incentivising, accelerating and overall financing.

On 1st August 2025, the final piece of this puzzle was introduced as a financing instrument worth ₹500 Crores, which was opened to collect expressions of interest from stakeholders seeking blended climate financing for electric truck deployment. In an official statement issued by Ease of Doing Business during the launch of this instrument last month, it was projected to finance the deployment of a maximum of 720 to 810 electric trucks under a credit outlay of ₹500 Crores to meet Viability Gap Funding.

However, today, while closing the single window for availing blended climate financing from this instrument, National Highways for EV (NHEV) and Transvolt Mobility, a leading electric truck fleet operator, revealed that a total deployment of 1,000 trucks resulted from this year-long exercise, which also included confidence and affirmation from all stakeholders through piloting, financing and commercial prototyping.

“Electric trucks have historically been major carbon emitters in surface transport. PM E- DRIVE has now brought electric trucks under its incentive coverage. The scale and speed of private capital deployment in NHEV confirm that the policy trajectory is headed in the right direction. The overwhelming response from various Zero Emission Trucking (ZET) stakeholders is encouraging. Recent Public-Private Partnership (PPP) deployments, such as the $ 57 million USD Viability Gap Funding (VGF) in ‘NHEV’ and the $20 million USD equity investment from IFC in ‘Transvolt Mobility’, are expected to further accelerate nationwide adoption of electric Heavy Duty Vehicles (HDVs) and the transition of surface transport to clean, cutting-edge, zero-emission solutions.” – Shri Sudhendu J. Sinha, Advisor, NITI Aayog, Government of India “This deployment, coming out of a comprehensive technical and commercial exercise, is extending Ease of Doing Business on both technical interoperability and climate financing fronts. Shippers, logistic companies, E-truck lessee(s) and users have developed confidence after multilayer technical trials, and investors and financers have evaluated the risk associated with repayment, upfront cost, residual value, insurance and operational safety parameters. E-truck manufacturers, and infra C fleet operators are determined to reduce electric truck costs from ₹1.25 Crores to ₹90 Lacs to offer approximately 10% lesser logistics cost in comparison to diesel fleet operators.”– Shri Abhijeet Sinha, National Program Director, Ease of Doing Business “This batch of 1,000 E-trucks, to be owned and operated by Transvolt Mobility, will also be deployed in construction projects, mines, shipyards and both dry/wet ports. These E- trucks will also connect multimodal logistics Gati Shakti Cargo Terminals (GCTs) and road freight routes across India, which currently transport cement, automobiles, containers, coal, iron and steel, foodgrains, fertilisers, furniture and petroleum products. Now, with NHEV, we are getting the opportunity to offer quick trials and deployments to potential public PSUs, corporations, mines C ports interested in leasing heavy-duty electric trucks, dumpers C tippers.” - Shri Siddesh Rai, Vice President, Transvolt Mobility This announcement of 1000 electric trucks’ deployment comes in September, after the auto sector witnessed almost double sales of electric trucks in the month of August 2025, following the Central government's ₹500 Crores incentive scheme introduced in July 2025, after the Ministry of Heavy Industries’ notification on guidelines for claiming e- truck incentives under the PM Electric Drive Revolution in Innovative Vehicle Enhancement (PM E-DRIVE) scheme, to incentivise electric truck adoption with an upfront capital subsidy of ₹2.7 - 9.3 lacs for the purchase of each truck.

Both entities, NHEV and Transvolt Mobility, inked this MoU of 1000 electric trucks today on World EV Day in New Delhi, after the subsequent arrangement of adequate capital required for the deployment. Firstly, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, announced an equity investment of :20 million USD in Transvolt Mobility within a week after the announcement of PM E-DRIVE on 11th July 2025. Followed by the second such big announcement of :57 million USD (₹500 Crores) blended climate finance opened by Ease of Doing Business (EoDB) on 1st August 2025 to accelerate deployment and clean mobility ventures with Viability Gap Funding (VGF) carved out of the total NHEV credit outlay arrangement of ₹3672 Crores from HDFC Bank.

(Disclaimer: The above press release comes to you under an arrangement with NRDPL and PTI takes no editorial responsibility for the same.). PTI PWR