Indian Army has started procuring electric vehicles for select units and formations, to be in line with the government’s overall policy of cutting down carbon emissions, Indian Army in a phased manner will replace 25 per cent of light vehicles, 38 per cent of buses and 48 per cent motorcycles with EVs in select units.
Indian Army is also well aware that electric vehicles require massive support infrastructure, including charging points for EVs but that is not possible in remote deployment locations and operational areas.
Indian Army is looking at newer greener technology that can be adopted for that it is planning to work with Indian manufacturers that could see the development of Military trucks that are powered by hydrogen internal combustion engines (ICE).
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Current and Future Military Trucks will still rely on Diesel engines to power them but OEMs are been told to accommodate options where Hydrogen internal combustion engines (ICE) can be easily swapped on older trucks.
Indian OEMs are already working to develop hydrogen-powered vehicles in both internal combustion (IC) engine and fuel cell variants in the next five years.
In the medium to long term (5 to 10) Price of Hydrogen internal combustion engines (ICE) and the production cost of Hydrogen is likely to tumble with massive investment in creating green hydrogen locally at an affordable price point, so will see the development of commercial long haul trucks and military trucks.