He used to drive a gas-powered cab but ditched it eight months ago when he did the math and realized an e-rickshaw was far cheaper to run. Plus there’s an added bonus: it pumps no tailpipe pollution into the city’s famously toxic air.

This is good for my pocket and for my environment, so why wouldn’t I make the switch?” Chand said.

Electric three-wheeler vehicles dominate in many Indian cities, relied on for short journeys between metro stations, offices, shops and homes. It’s not just an urban phenomenon, either; e-rickshaws have proliferated in rural areas. Across India, nearly 60% of all three-wheeler sales are now electric.

The transport revolution unfolding in the world’s most populous country is messy — plenty of e-rickshaws are unauthorized and run on stolen electricity — but its speed and scale is reflective of a remarkable clean energy boom.

India’s electrification pathway may end up being even faster, according to a new report from climate think tank Ember, with big implications for the rest of the world. India is the planet’s third-biggest climate polluter and what happens here affects everyone.

It’s a similar story for electric vehicles. EVs account for around 5% of all car sales in India and it sells more electric three-wheelers than any other country.

That’s not to say India isn’t still heavily reliant on planet-heating fossil fuels. It has plans to scale up coal over the next two decades and its oil consumption is growing.

The country’s soaring energy demand means, even though it’s adding renewable energy at pace, coal is not yet getting displaced from the grid, said Debajit Palit from the Centre for Climate Change & Energy Transition at the Chintan Research Foundation, an independent think tank.

India’s clean energy transition is being driven mainly by one thing: cost.

In 2004, when China used a similar amount of energy per person as India does now, coal was about ten times cheaper than solar. Today, solar energy plus the cost to store it is about half as much as new coal plants, according to Ember.

Costs of solar panels, wind turbines and batteries have all plummeted. Battery prices alone dropped 40% in 2024, Bond said. These kinds of steep reductions simply aren’t possible with fossil fuels, he added.

Clean energy can also help give India something many countries are seeking: energy independence.

India imports close to 90% of its oil and half its gas, leaving it exposed to price shocks and geopolitical turmoil, said Thijs Van de Graaf, an associate professor of international politics at Ghent University. “Renewables help reduce this vulnerability,” he said.

India does have plans to reduce its dependence. Over the last decade, solar module production has surged 12-fold, Ember’s report noted. The government has also launched a “national critical mineral mission” to up production, Palit said.

There’s a growing demand for alternative trading partners, Ember’s report noted. A huge trade deal signed between India and the European Union last month has been interpreted as a sign of this shift.

What India is doing could also be mirrored in other emerging economies, which may be able to harness increasingly cheap wind and solar at an even faster rate to power their economic development, Bond said.