Delhi Sets 2027-28 Cut-Offs for Fossil-Fuel 3- and 2-Wheeler Registrations

India’s capital last used a regulatory shock-therapy in 2001 when the Supreme Court forced Delhi’s bus fleet to shift to CNG—within three years soot levels fell but enforcement gaps lingered. The new EV deadlines echo California’s 1990 Zero-Emission Vehicle mandate and China’s 2017 city-level licence-plate quotas: state actors intervene when market incentives stall. Over the past decade, battery costs have dropped ~80 % and two-wheelers already outsell ICE counterparts in some Chinese cities, making the mandate technologically plausible, yet Delhi’s patchy power grid and limited public charging mirror the obstacles that hobbled India’s 1980s lead-acid e-rickshaw push. On a 100-year arc, the move is a micro-step in the global phase-out of internal-combustion mobility—if India’s largest megacity can electrify its 6 million two-wheelers, it sets a template for other emerging megacities; if execution falters, it will join a long list of well-meaning but weakly-implemented environmental edicts.