Delhi’s toxic smog compared to smoking 50 cigarettes a day<\/a><\/p>\nDelhi’s notorious air pollution kills thousands. Can it be fixed?\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Estimates vary between one-third to 50 per cent [of Delhi’s pollution] coming from transport,” International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) India director Amit Bhatt said.<\/p>\n
“We’ve found that CNG vehicles are not so clean when it comes to nitrogen oxide emissions, and nitrogen oxides lead to secondary particulate matter [in the air].”<\/p>\n
Despite the persistent pollution, many rickshaw drivers still consider CNG a clean alternative to petrol and fear losing their income to another change.<\/p>\n
“I have been driving an auto since 2002 and [an electric rickshaw] costs 250,000 to 300,000 rupees ($3,700-$4,400),” rickshaw driver Suraj Kumar Gupta said.<\/p>\n
“If I buy in this age, I would be tired paying interest on the loan. Either the auto will get old or I will.”<\/p>\n
Mr Sachdeva, who leads a welfare group for rickshaw drivers in the city, said they were planning a legal challenge before the restrictions in January.<\/p>\n
Electric rickshaw revolution![\"a](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/a56352bb09ff8b025a668f9ec58a0753.jpeg\")
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Sunitha Anup is a researcher at the International Council on Clean Transportation in India. (ABC News: Som Patidar)<\/p>\n
Regardless of the challenge, they may soon be outnumbered by others who have already switched.<\/p>\n
ICCT researcher Sunitha Anup said their analysis indicated around half of India’s rickshaws were already electric, a far higher percentage than any other class of vehicle.<\/p>\n
“For four-wheelers, it’s around 4 per cent,” she said.<\/p>\n
Other South and South-East Asian countries have also embraced electric scooters, motorcycles and rickshaws far more than electric cars.<\/p>\n
India’s micro-EV boom has been partly supported by imported components that can be easily adapted for use by local manufacturers.<\/p>\n
However, just days after Delhi’s cabinet signed its new EV policy into law, the drivers of those affordable electric rickshaws were given a rude shock.<\/p>\n
Battery hacking<\/p>\n
In July, videos began to spread online showing electric rickshaws stopping dead on Delhi’s streets.<\/p>\n
The hack was simple and spread quickly: scammers would download a free battery management app, scan for passing vehicles with unsecured Bluetooth connections, then use the app to disable the battery remotely.<\/p>\n
Loading Instagram content<\/p>\n
Some would use this opportunity to extort money from the driver.<\/p>\n
The Indian government responded quickly, ordering Google and Apple to remove some Chinese battery management apps from app stores.<\/p>\n
Experts have warned that many of Delhi’s electric rickshaws are still vulnerable.<\/p>\n
“These [banned] apps are not the only apps; anybody can write such an app and share it,” International Institute of Information Technology Hyderabad director Sandeep Kumar Shukla said.<\/p>\n
“We have these battery packs being imported and being fitted into vehicles without any cybersecurity compliance check.<\/p>\n
“In fact, there is no guideline or compliance requirement [in India] against which it can be checked.”Incoming surge<\/p>\n
As organised and vocal as Delhi’s rickshaw drivers may be, they are far outnumbered by the city’s motorcycles and scooters.<\/p>\n
With the ban on new non-electric two-wheeled vehicles starting in April 2028, the countdown is on to prepare the electrical grid for a surge in charging.<\/p>\n
ICCT’s Mr Bhatt said the smaller size of two- and three-wheeled EVs would make the transition easier for Delhi’s infrastructure but admitted that access to chargers would be an obstacle for many.<\/p>\n
![\"Rickshaw](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/52b130d29604ea8739236b48c24494af.jpeg\")
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Electric rickshaw drivers have reported technical issues at swappable battery charge points in Delhi. (ABC News: Bhat Burhan)<\/p>\n
“Two-wheelers and three-wheelers do not require the massive public charging which a truck or a bus or even a car would require; a lot of charging will happen at home,” Mr Bhatt said.<\/p>\n
However, he conceded that after owning an EV himself for four years in Delhi, he still hadn’t been permitted to install a charger at his home.<\/p>\n
“My resident welfare association is saying, ‘What if it catches fire because there is no [regulation or guidelines] on how to go about setting up this charging?'” he said.<\/p>\n
![\"the](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/257d79285ac91496464ea2e4c480c99d.jpeg\")
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This Delhi public charger listed four batteries as ready but then said none were available when a request was made. (ABC News: Bhat Burhan)<\/p>\n
Driver Indrajeet Sachdeva estimated 90 per cent of rickshaw owners did not have a space at home to install chargers.<\/p>\n
At one of Delhi’s public charging stations for swappable batteries, the ABC watched drivers waiting while the machine’s display listed four batteries were ready.<\/p>\n
When a battery was requested from the machine, a pop-up message said none were available.<\/p>\n
Mr Sachdeva said issues like this meant the government needed to give the industry more time before going all-in on electrification.<\/p>\n
Delhi’s chief minister’s office did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Few sights and sounds are as familiar in Delhi as colourful auto rickshaws and the rhythmic beat of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":865138,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[11216,64,63,3164,433848,17652,13727,99,433850,40421,192309,4257,433847,18846,433849,12460,1209,32900,433845,161804,433846],"class_list":["post-865137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-air-pollution","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-auto","tag-auto-rickshaw","tag-ban","tag-battery","tag-business","tag-dehli","tag-delhi","tag-delhi-smog","tag-electric","tag-electric-rickshaw","tag-ev","tag-ev-news","tag-hack","tag-india","tag-registration","tag-rickshaw","tag-smog","tag-tuk-tuk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/865137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=865137"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/865137\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/865138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=865137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=865137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=865137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"rickshaw](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/a401b77f0a0bab4b59195458cee1be95.jpeg\")
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