By Aryan Gupta
India’s road-fuel demand will keep rising until 2034 despite accelerating electric-vehicle adoption, as a growing vehicle fleet and heavier use by commercial transport sustain the country’s appetite for oil.
Fuel demand from road transport will peak at more than 2.5 million barrels a day in eight years before gradually declining, according to BloombergNEF’s India Electric Vehicle Outlook 2026. Over time, rising adoption of electric two-wheelers, three-wheelers and passenger cars is expected to outweigh growth in commercial-vehicle consumption and push overall demand lower.
The outlook comes as global emissions are growing far more slowly than they did a decade ago, though they have yet to peak, according to this year’s Global Carbon Budget. China, which accounts for about a third of the world’s annual emissions, is on course to cut them this year, and India’s fuel demand, with eight more years of growth ahead, could sustain global oil demand for longer than China’s trend alone would suggest.
EV sales reached more than 2.4 million units last year, but apart from three-wheelers, no vehicle segment is on track to meet India’s 2030 electrification targets under BNEF’s projections. The transition will also require a major expansion of charging infrastructure, with BNEF estimating about $29 billion of investment will be needed by 2040.
