ICTS 2026: Gigafactories, recycling may power next EV phase, say experts

Experts emphasize domestic gigafactories and battery recycling as keys to making EVs cheaper in India, but note charging infrastructure remains a challenge.

Domestic gigafactories and a scaled-up battery recycling ecosystem will be critical to making electric vehicles (EVs) cheaper and reducing India’s dependence on imported battery cells, industry experts said on Tuesday.

The panel of experts during a discussion on gigafactories and battery recycling on the first day of ICTS 2026 on Tuesday. (HT Photo)

Speaking on the first day of the India Clean Transportation Summit 2026, experts said strengthening domestic manufacturing and recycling would be more important for the long-term competitiveness of EVs than relying primarily on purchase subsidies. Charging infrastructure, however, remains a major bottleneck to wider adoption.

Hindustan Times is the media partner for the event.

Nitin Gupta, CEO and co-founder of e-waste and lithium battery recycling company Attero, said the volume of end-of-life batteries in India had doubled over the past year, pointing to rapid growth in the recycling industry. The development of domestic gigafactories, he said, would help create a circular battery supply chain in which materials used in battery manufacturing eventually return to the production cycle through recycling.

“Those gigafactories I think are a pivotal point in the entire domestication of the industrialisation of the Indian supply chain,” Gupta said.

He added that localisation would help bring down the cost of battery cells that India currently imports.

The pace of EV adoption will also depend on how quickly demand grows across vehicle categories, said Jayesh Shelar, chief marketing officer at clean fuel truck maker Blue Energy Motors. He said the commercial vehicle segment was already witnessing rapid adoption, with monthly electric truck sales recently reaching levels that previously took years to achieve.

Looking towards 2030-32, Shelar projected particularly high penetration for smaller electric vehicles. “I see three-wheelers will be 100% 30-32 around, I will say 80% of two-wheelers should be there, then commercial vehicles should be 60%,” he said.

Gowri Natarajan, head of public policy and strategic partnerships at shared micromobility platform Yulu, stressed the need for government policies to account for the entire lifecycle of EVs, including what happens after vehicles are deployed.

“We claim to be supporting domestic manufacturing, but what happens after these vehicles are on the road is something I don’t think the government is entirely processing, especially in the context of shared mobility,” Natarajan said.

She also flagged difficulties in developing supporting infrastructure, saying obtaining land approvals and appropriate electricity tariffs for EV operations could take months or even years because multiple government agencies are involved.

“Something as basic as acquisition of approvals on land, something as basic as getting the right power tariffs to support EVs, these take months and months and years and coordination between so many government agencies,” she said.

Experts argued for a more streamlined institutional mechanism for electric mobility approvals, with a single agency potentially coordinating the multiple permissions required to establish supporting infrastructure.