A carbon footprint is the total amount of greenhouse gas emissions, that come from the production, use and end-of-life of a product or service, and which gets trap heat in the atmosphere, ended up causing global warming. Greenhouse gases includes carbon dioxide - the gas most commonly emitted by humans, methane, nitrous oxide, and fluorinated gases.

Usually, the bulk of an individual’s carbon footprint comes from transportation, housing, energy and food. Globally, the average carbon footprint is closer to 4 tons. To have the best chance of avoiding a 2℃ rise in global temperatures, the average global carbon footprint per year needs to drop to under 2 tons by 2050.

Globally the transport sector is responsible for 25% of total carbon dioxide (CO2 ) emissions from fuel combustion in 2018 (IEA, 2020). It is the fastest growing sector and is a major contributor of global greenhouse gas emissions (Hasan et al. 2019). In India, it is the third most CO2 emitting sector, and within the transport sector, road transport contributed more than 90% of total CO2 emissions (IEA, 2020; Ministry of Environment Forest and Climate Change, 2018). The greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in India consisted of 70% CO2 and 30% non-CO2 (methane, nitrous oxide, F-gas) emissions (Olivier and Peters 2020). With economic development in India, the vehicle ownership level has increased with a growth rate of 10.4% for two-wheelers and 11% for cars from 2001 to 2015 (Singh et al. 2020), leading to an increase in emission levels on the road. An increase in vehicle population also contributed significantly to India's air pollution (Guttikunda & Kopakka, 2014). Serious health issues are observed due to high exposure to air pollution (PM and NOx) in India (Guttikunda et al. 2015).

Electric vehicles (EVs) are an important part of meeting global goals on climate change. EVs are responsible for considerably lower emissions over their lifetime than conventional (internal combustion engine) vehicles and hence EV's lower lifetime climate impacts than those with internal combustion engines. If a new EV replaces an existing conventional car, it would still start to cut emissions after less than four years of use compared to continuing to run the older vehicle. Experts broadly agree that electric vehicles create a lower carbon footprint over the course of their lifetime than do cars and trucks that use traditional, internal combustion engines.

The number of electric cars, buses, vans and heavy trucks on roads is expected to hit 145 million by 2030, the International Energy Agency predicts.