A chicken-or-egg first problem has developed in the country’s electrical truck industry, with the government demanding manufacturers to meet an ambitious localization plan, while the e-trucks arise the indigenous indigenous concerns about the question. Two people who are aware of recent consultations between the Ministry of Heavy Industries and e-trucks such as Tata Motors, Ashok Leyland, Volvo Eicher trading vehicles and Murugappa Group’s iPltech, said the government had asked the manufacturers earlier in October to comply with localization criteria. A phased manufacturing program (PMP) for e-trucks unveiled in July as part of the £ 10,900-Crore PM e-drive scheme, set deadlines for e-truck components allowed to import. Most such products and components are currently imported from China. It has listed products and components such as an HVAC system (heating, ventilation and air conditioning), electrical compressors for brakes, charges for standard EV chargers, a battery management system, a vehicle control unit and traction forces. The cut-off date for importing most of these components was September 1, 2025, with the import of some to 1 March 2026. One recent recreation was when the government allowed e-trucks to import traction with rare earthen magnets of Chinese suppliers in the aftermath of the rare nature of Magnet stock from China. The Premier-E-drive scheme for e-trucks and e-buses was extended to FY28 in August this year, only a few months before it would expire, as funds for these two vehicle segments were not used. The £ 10,900 crore support in the scheme was earmarked for subsidies for the purchase of electric two-wheelers, tricycle makers, e-buses, e-trucks, electric and hybrid ambulances and loading freedom. E-buses made up about 40% of the award. Tests delays, even after more than two months since the e-truck guidelines were announced, no e-truck model passed the localization test from the date, one of the persons above said and asked anonymity. This indicates that the shift to localization is slow. “The government has asked e-trucks to speed up the testing process,” the first person quoted above. The testing will show which local parts are used in e-trucks and e-buses. This is despite the fact that Indian car components are starting to make critical parts locally. Companies such as Sona Comstar (listed on the exchanges as Sona BLW Precision Fornings Ltd) make traction and Toyota Kirloskar Auto Parts Ltd plan to make native to EVs. These two products, as well as a few others, are included in the government’s production -linked incentive scheme of £ 25,938 for cars and auto parts, where localization criteria acquire 50% of parts and raw materials in India. According to the second person mentioned above, e-trucks have quoted uncertainty in demand for the slow switch to local components, while the government has counteracted that companies using trucks in sectors such as ports, steel and cement have shown to switch to green logistics. Email inquiries sent to the Heavy Industries Ministry, as well as trucks Tata Motors, Ashok Leyland, Ipltech and Volvo Eicher commercial vehicle remained unanswered. Moving to e-trucks is expensive for businesses, as it is 20% to 50% more expensive than diesel models, according to domain experts. The growth in sales of the so-called N2 and N3 e trucks is at a healthy 27.5% between fiscal 2025 and the previous financial year, but the underlying numbers are very small: 301 e-trucks were sold in fiscal 2025, less than 0.1% of the number of diesel skins sold in the year. (N2 trucks have a gross vehicle weight of 3.5 to 12 tonnes and the larger N3 variants range from 12 to 55 tons.) Indigenous e-trucks for local manufacturers become viable with a greater demand, an expert said. E-truck manufacturers make a complicated effort before they are in “Seller Management, not only at level 1, but also Tier 2 and Tier 3 levels,” says Sharif Qamar, co-director for transport and urban management at the Energy and Resources Institute. “Unless they have the necessary scale and demand for their products, the use of expensive local components can affect their margins.”
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