India, June 6 -- India must resist the temptation of intermediary technologies like hybrid cars and instead leapfrog directly into adopting electric vehicles (EVs), much like it did during the smartphone revolution, said India's G20 Sherpa Amitabh Kant on World Environment Day on Thursday.

"Opting for hybrids is like returning to typewriters in an era of artificial intelligence and smartphones. We should never do that," said Kant, the former CEO of NITI Aayog.

He was speaking at the release of a report by the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) and IIT Roorkee that assesses life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions of internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs), hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs), and battery electric vehicles (...