By Kashish Tandon
India's appetite for electric, hybrid and compressed natural gas vehicles accelerated after the Iran war triggered fuel price hikes, the president of the country's auto dealers' body said, with such models reaching a record share of passenger vehicle sales in June.
Alternative-fuel vehicles accounted for 40.35% of PV retail sales in June, up from about 38% a month earlier, as consumers increasingly sought cheaper running costs after petrol and diesel prices were raised several times in May.
"We need to watch whether this is an emotional knee-jerk reaction from customers or whether this growth is here to stay," C.S. Vigneshwar, president of the Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations (FADA), told Reuters on Monday.
Overall vehicle sales rose 21.8% to a record 2.6 million units, with PV sales rising 28.6% year-on-year to 410,853 units.
Among PVs, CNG models accounted for 24.3% of total sales, while hybrids made up 8.3% and electric vehicles 7.8%.
Industry leader Maruti Suzuki NSE:MARUTI said last month that bookings for its CNG cars jumped 40% since the fuel price hikes.
The share of electric vehicles among overall two-wheeler sales rose to 10.6%, hitting the double-digit mark for the first time, according to FADA.
While the worst of the crude shock and supply chain disruptions from the Iran war seemed to be over, a return to complete normalcy could still take "a few quarters" and may involve some cost implications, said Vigneshwar.