New Delhi subsidizes sales of India's new electric car

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NEW DELHI, June 25 (RIA Novosti) - An Indian car maker launched itsenvironmentally friendly electric car Wednesday in the Indiancapital with city authorities pledging subsidies for buyers in adrive to lower pollution, the company's deputy head said.
The city administration agreed not to levy 12.5% VAT and tosubsidize 15% of the Reva's base price. Buyers will also get arefund on road and registration tax. Accounting for subsidies thevehicle is expected to cost around $7,100.
"We are expanding our sales to Delhi," Chetan Kumar Maini was citedby The Times of India as saying, "We will be ramping our productioncapacities by five fold by the end of the year."
The Reva took 13 years of research and development and around $20million investment to produce the tiny battery-powered car, whichis made in Bangalore in India's south.
The car can be charged from an ordinary 220W socket. Themanufacturer says 1 km will cost about 1 cent excluding maintenanceexpenses. The car can travel 80 km (50 miles) after one charge.
However, a company representative said the Reva was unlikely tochallenge the "people's car" manufactured by Tata Nano, which isdue to go on sale in October at less than $3,000 including taxes.
A representative for the Reva Electric Car Company, Nevan Kulkarni,said additional support from municipal authorities was required.
Air pollution is an urgent problem in New Delhi. In 2001,authorities switched all commercial and municipal public transportfrom diesel fuel to natural gas, which helped improve theenvironment, but in early 2008, pollution levels hit an eight-yearlow due to the increasing number of cars on the city's roads.