The governments of India, the United Kingdom and the United States joined with business, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) and multilateral funding organization to launch the first dialogue of the Partnership to Support an Accelerated Transition to Zero-Emission Vehicles (ZEV) in India. The meeting comes just after the announcement of the Union Budget 2023, which has provided a boost for ‘Green Growth’, including electric mobility adoption in India.

Participants jointly launched a ZEV country pilot program with India to support India’s ZEV transition plans and establish a model for other countries to follow. They also deepened partnerships between the Indian government and industry stakeholders through the ZEV Emerging Markets Initiative (ZEV-EM-I) to refine public policies and expand opportunities for private investment.

The Partnership to Support an Accelerated Transition to Zero-Emission Vehicles in India was announced in 2022 at COP27 by the ZEV-TC. In the inaugural dialogue today, stakeholders discussed three crucial topics: India’s priorities, ambitions, and experiences in its transition to ZEVs; a review of existing investments and engagement in India across the public and private sectors; and an exploration of new opportunities for stronger collaboration and coordination to speed up India’s ZEV transition, shaping international cooperation before the G20 Summit, Clean Energy Ministerial and COP28.

The meeting was the first in a series of dialogues in emerging markets planned for 2023, aiming to establish new public-private partnerships and strengthen support for countries. Several leading international companies from the ZEV value chain have already joined the initiative, including Arcadis, BloombergNEF, Eşarj Enerjisa, Fifth Wall, Fujitsu, Grab, Hitachi, Honda, KPMG, LeasePlan, LinkedIn, PepsiCo, The Deutsche Post DHL Group and Uber.

These participating companies have already pledged to globally invest over USD $50 billion in the ZEV transition in their operations and to deploy over 2 million electric vehicles by 2030. These companies will initiate dialogues in selected emerging markets in Latin America and Southeast Asia, with the aim of accelerating and de-risking investments through supportive policies.

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Albert Cheung, Head of Global Analysis at BloombergNEF, said, “The transition to zero-emission vehicles represents a multi-trillion-dollar opportunity and a critical solution on the path to net zero in India. Collaboration will be key to unlocking the potential, and BloombergNEF is delighted to work alongside the governments of India, the US and UK and WBCSD as a key knowledge partner in this important initiative.”

Christopher Hook, Uber’s Global Head of Sustainability, said: “We’re devoting USD $800 million in resources to help drivers go electric – and we’re seeing encouraging early results, especially in the UK and US. We want to partner with cities to see those same results everywhere. Tackling climate change is a global effort, and we’re committed to doing our part to help accelerate an equitable shift to EVs worldwide.”

Ram Ramachander, Chief Executive of Hitachi ZeroCarbon, said, “Hitachi ZeroCarbon is proud to be part of the ZEV-EM-I initiative as we help deliver innovative end-to-end fleet decarbonization solutions and discover untapped revenue streams in emerging markets. What companies increasingly understand is that we need to redesign the planet’s infrastructure from the industrial-age revolution to a climate change–age revolution. Electrifying fleets is key to that transition.”

Yoshinami Takahashi, EVP and Vice-head of the Global Solution Business Group, Fujitsu, said, “Fujitsu is proud to partner with the ZEV-EM Initiative. Our goal in ZEV-EM-I is to transform how we interact with information, enabling us to apply innovative approaches toward addressing a wide variety of pressing societal issues. By collaborating with WBCSD members last year, Fujitsu’s Fleet Optimization solution enabled fleet operators to reduce CO2 emissions from EV charging by 15%. By partnering with ZEV-EM-I members, we believe our knowledge and technology can accelerate the transition to ZEV in emerging countries.”