India, April 4 -- In Pune, where electric vehicle adoption is steadily rising, Ashwini Tiwary was among the earliest believers in the shift. At a time when most people were still sceptical about EV technology, he had already begun using a two-wheeler electric vehicle.

"The year was 2017. I had just given up our last petrol vehicle and made a deliberate, irreversible decision: my family and team would commute exclusively on electric vehicles. I wasn't naive about the challenges, I was, after all, already eight years into building EV skilling infrastructure across India through my Autobot Academy," he recalls.

Back then, curiosity around EVs was high. At traffic signals or in parking lots, strangers would stop him with questions, how did ...