New Delhi, Dec. 27 -- The heavy industries ministry is likely to exhaust its Rs.857-crore subsidy fund for electric three-wheelers in the L5 category under the Rs.10,900-crore PM E-Drive scheme three months ahead of schedule, according to the government's letter to manufacturers. The funds were originally expected to last until March 2026, but the high adoption of electric three-wheelers means they have been disbursed faster than anticipated. In a publicly available letter to the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (Siam) dated 23 December, the ministry said it would stop granting incentives on reaching the scheme's target of 288,809 L5 three-wheelers, or on 26 December, whichever came earlier. "Para 46 of the scheme notification clearly stipulates that the PM E-Drive Scheme is fund-limited, and once the allocated funds for the scheme or any of its sub-components is exhausted, no further claims will be entertained," the letter read. Two kinds of electric three-wheelers can receive subsidies under the PM E-Drive scheme - L3 category e-rickshaws with small batteries, commonly used for last-mile connectivity in cities such as Delhi and Kolkata; and larger, L5 category three-wheelers that are used to ferry both passengers and cargo. L3 vehicles usually have a battery capacity of 2 to 7 kilowatt-hours (kWh), while L5 vehicles are powered by 7 to 12 kWh batteries. The government had originally allocated Rs.192 crore for L3 vehicles and Rs.715 crore for L5 vehicles, but a low offtake in e-rickshaws led it to increase the L5 allocation to Rs.857 crore. A total of 750,000 e-three wheelers (from both categories) were sold in India in 2025, up from 700,000 the year before. To date, 286,000 of these vehicles have benefited from lower upfront costs under the two-year PM E-Drive scheme, which began in FY25. Indian consumers have taken to electric three-wheelers with gusto. More than 687,000 or about 60% of three-wheelers sold in 2025 were electric, even as adoption in other vehicle segments lagged. About 167,000 or 4.8% of cars and about 1.2 million or 6.2% of two-wheelers sold in 2025 were electric. The wide gap is due to the fact that three-wheelers are, for a variety of reasons, far more amenable to the switch from gasoline than two- and four-wheelers. Huge investments in electric three-wheelers have also led to near price parity with their fossil-fuel cousins, especially when factoring in their lower operating and maintenance costs, Mint reported on 25 November. E-rickshaws in the L3 category have mostly lacked access to government subsidies as they have failed to meet the scheme's localisation (domestic value addition) requirements. Since its launch in FY25, only about 4,600 L3 e-rickshaws have been subsidised under the scheme, according to the official dashboard - a mere 0.55% of the 830,000 such e-rickshaws sold over this period, according to Vahan....