Delhi-Jaipur Expressway to turn India’s 1st ‘Electric highway’, trial run of e-vehicles begin

New Delhi: Under the Ease of Doing Business initiative, the National Highway for Electric Vehicles (NHEV) initiated a one-month tech trial run for e-vehicles on the Delhi-Jaipur expressway on Friday.

Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Ashwini Kumar Choubey flagged off the tech trial run from India Gate in New Delhi.

The key objective behind the second phase of this trial run is to analyze the financial viability of e-vehicles on the highway which happens to be 270 km long.

The first phase of the trial was conducted last year on the Yamuna Expressway between Delhi-Agra to learn the technical feasibility by NHEV.

“Our previous Tech-Trial Run I on the Delhi-Agra highway covered 210 km and the current Tech-Trial Run II covering 278 km over Delhi-Jaipur will facilitate Indian Highways to be transformed into EV-highways while testing both technical and commercial aspects over a span of 500 km to the satisfaction of the entire spectrum of stakeholders–Users, Operators, Investors & Government of India as a Nation”, told NHEV Program Director Abhijeet Sinha.

NHEV is focusing on estimating highway upgradation cost, per person seat cost, one day cost of renting a vehicle, and CO2 emission saved by one e-vehicle annually.

“Other factors like the requirement of a number of physical infrastructures and charging stations to support EVs efficiently and other associated requirements for safe inter-state EV transportation will also be studied during the trial run. We aim to develop not only an E-highways network but also a people-friendly network of 5000 km by 2024”, Sinha added.

NHEV is conducting the trial run on 500 km highways only in the initial phases.