Administrative Barriers and Managerial Challenges in the Electric Vehicle Manufacturing Sector: A Critical Review

Abstract

The electric vehicle (EV) manufacturing sector has emerged as the central pillar of the global transition towards low-carbon mobility, and India has positioned itself as an aspiring manufacturing hub through a succession of demand- and supply-side interventions. Yet the pace at which manufacturing capacity, localisation and firm-level profitability have advanced remains uneven and, in several segments, considerably slower than policy targets envisaged. This paper undertakes a critical review of the administrative barriers and managerial challenges that constrain EV manufacturing enterprises, with particular reference to the Indian context. Drawing upon secondary sources including government notifications, scheme documents of the Ministry of Heavy Industries, industry association data, reports of policy research institutions and peer-reviewed scholarship published between 2012 and 2026, the study synthesises the existing evidence into an integrated framework. Administrative barriers are classified into six domains covering policy discontinuity, procedural complexity in subsidy administration, multiplicity of approving authorities, certification bottlenecks, taxation anomalies and centre-state divergence. Managerial challenges are grouped into seven domains covering supply chain and critical-mineral dependence, cost and pricing pressure, technology absorption, skill deficits, quality and after-sales management, distribution and financing constraints, and organisational change. The review argues that these two sets of constraints are not independent; administrative friction is frequently transmitted into managerial cost, and managerial weaknesses in compliance capability in turn amplify administrative delay. The paper concludes that a shift from episodic incentive-led policy towards predictable, rule-based and digitally administered regulation, combined with deliberate managerial investment in supplier development, skill formation and compliance systems, is necessary if the sector is to achieve scale economies. Limitations of the secondary-data design are acknowledged and an agenda for empirical firm-level research is proposed.