India will house the world’s longest electric vehicle (EV) highway and it will be ready by the end of 2022. The Atal Harit Vidyut Rashtriya Mahamarg (AHVRM) is named after former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. However, the highway will be renamed once the construction is finished. The total length of AHVRM will be nearly 500 kilometers. Currently, the world’s largest EV highway is situated in Berlin, Germany. This highway is 109 kilometers long.
“To start with, we will have 100 electric cars and 25 electric buses on both the highways. Cars will be available for hiring as self-driven and with chauffeurs too. There will be 12 charging points, two out of which will be completely solar-powered. This will be the world’s longest electric vehicle highway.” said Project Director of National Highway for Electric Vehicles, Abhijeet Sinha. Any electric vehicle, whether personal or taxi, will be monitored 24 hours a day on the E-way, and in case of breakdown, assistance will be offered within 45 minutes without causing any inconvenience, he further noted.
According to the NHEV website, “Agra-Delhi-Jaipur will be the first 500-km EV corridor programmed and operated by Advance Services for Social and Administrative Reforms (ASSAR) to bring ease of doing business on the 12 corridors marked by the power ministry.”
“Vehicles, chargers, civil, electric infrastructure, fleet, and station utilities are all involved in the Annuity Hybrid E-Mobility (AHEM) model, with a single CAPEX spend from public sector undertakings (PSUs) and banks. NHEV would be able to convert any NH into an E-highway in 90 days, with a maximum waiting time of 30 minutes for a breakdown EV,” NHEV stated.