Maharashtra dethrones Delhi as India’s top electric bus market in 2025

NEW DELHI: Electric bus (e-bus) sales in Maharashtra jumped by over 60% in 2025, helping the state overtake New Delhi as India’s largest e-bus market, as states push to expand green public transport and cut carbon emissions.

Maharashtra saw 1,442 e-buses sold in calendar year 2025, compared to 1,382 units in Delhi, according to the central government Vahan portal that keeps a record of all vehicle registrations.

India's market for emission-free public transport has been expanding, with e-bus sales rising to about 4,400 units in 2025 from a little over 3,600 a year ago. This includes buses procured by state transport agencies as well as privately-operated fleets.

With 1,036 units, Delhi topped e-bus sales in 2024, followed by Maharashtra with 880 units.

Tamil Nadu saw saw a dramatic surge in sales, rising from 5 units in 2024 to just under 400 units in 2025.

In comparison, Gujarat and Karnataka saw their e-bus sales fall considerably. Only 445 e-buses were sold in Karnataka in 2025, down from over 800 in the previous year. Similarly, only 116 e-buses were sold in Gujarat in 2025, down from 329 units a year ago.

Policy push

The central government is looking to accelerate the rollout of electric buses in the country through massive clean mobility programmes such as the ₹10,900-crore PM E-Drive scheme and the ₹25,938-crore PLI-Auto scheme.

Experts attributed the surge in e-bus sales in the country to these incentive schemes.

“The growth in annual e-bus sales is largely driven by strong policy support from the Government of India through schemes such as PM E-Drive, PM e-Bus Sewa, and earlier FAME (Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Electric Vehicles). These programmes have reduced upfront costs, enabled large-scale aggregated procurement, and improved the financial viability of electric buses for public transport undertakings,” said Amit Bhatt, India managing director of the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT), a global think tank.

A spokesperson for e-bus maker EKA Mobility said government initiatives, along with multiple state-level tenders formed the backbone of e-bus demand in 2025. "These programs have provided policy support, funding visibility, and scale, enabling STUs to move ahead with large deployments. In comparison, private sector adoption has seen only limited traction so far, with demand largely concentrated around pilot projects and niche use cases. As a result, public procurement continues to remain the dominant force shaping e-bus sales in India in 2025," the spokesperson said.

India’s e-bus fleet has gradually expanded over the years, from about 1,170 new buses sold in 2021, to over 4,400 sold last year. Still, electrification of public transportation remains low in comparison to China and the European Union.

In August 2025, the government's top policy think tank Niti Aayog flagged low electric vehicle adoption across segments, including buses, and suggested that the Centre use mandates alongside incentives to accelerate clean mobility.

The Aayog noted in the August 2025 report titled ‘Unlocking a $200 billion opportunity: Electric Vehicles in India’, that while India’s e-bus penetration was 7% in 2023, it was lower than EU’s 14% and China’s 50%.

EV penetration refers to the share of electric vehicles among total vehicles.

To be sure, India’s e-bus sales in 2025 were still only a fraction of total buses sold in the country, with diesel dominating the market. While about 4,400 e-buses were sold in 2025, diesel bus sales topped 66,000 in the same period, indicating the penetration of e-buses was about 6.5%.

China’s e-bus adoption soared after 2014, data compiled by the International Energy Agency (IEA) showed. It reached a 10% penetration in 2014, and by 2016, penetration jumped to over 40%, the data showed.

“China experienced massive growth in electric buses from 2014 to 2018, a time when other countries had barely started deploying them. In 2017, Shenzhen became the first city in the world to electrify its entire bus fleet (16,000 buses),” said World Resources Institute (WRI) in a June 2025 report.

For India, too, increasing EV adoption is key to meeting the country’s net-zero emission target of 2070, as vehicular emissions remain one of the biggest contributors of greenhouse gases and air pollutants.

Bhatt of ICCT was of the view that the next frontier for India’s e-bus adoption is increasing adoption in privately-owned and operated buses. “The next phase of e-bus adoption must extend beyond public transport agencies, which account for only about 8–9% of India’s total bus market. Scaling up electrification in private segments, such as intercity transport, employee mobility, and school buses will be critical,” he said.

Mint reported earlier that the central government is working on a scheme to make e-bus financing easier and cheaper for private bus operators, as a majority of the buses on Indian roads are owned and operated by them.

Scaling production capabilities is essential to meeting future demand, while ensuring supply chains are resilient and localised, according to EKA.

"Equally important is cost efficiency at the operational level. The next phase of adoption will depend on building buses that are optimised for lower total cost of ownership—through energy-efficient drivetrains, durable components, higher uptime, and reduced maintenance requirements. As operators become more focused on economics and performance, cost-efficient, reliable buses will be central to accelerating wider adoption of zero-emission public transport in India," the company spokesperson said.