Uttar Pradesh added 41.74 lakh new vehicles during 2025-26, pushing the state’s cumulative vehicle population to over 5.33 crore. However, while conventional vehicle registrations continue to be dominated by personal mobility, electric vehicle (EV) adoption is following a distinctly different path, with commercial vehicles accounting for the bulk of the state’s electric mobility growth.
According to data compiled by the state transport department and accessed by the HT, non-transport vehicles such as private cars, motorcycles and scooters accounted for 37.38 lakh of the fresh registrations during the year, nearly 90% of the total additions, while transport vehicles contributed 4.36 lakh registrations.
The state’s total vehicle fleet now comprises 4.99 crore non-transport vehicles and 34.67 lakh transport vehicles, meaning more than 93% of all registered vehicles in UP are privately owned. In contrast, the state’s EV fleet remains heavily tilted towards commercial use.
The data shows UP now has 15.35 lakh electric vehicles, representing about 2.9% of the total registered vehicle population. Of these, 11.68 lakh are transport vehicles and 3.67 lakh are non-transport vehicles, indicating that nearly three out of every four EVs in the state are being used for commercial or public transport purposes.
As per the data, the state registered 3,79,752 new EVs across 76 regional transport offices during 2025-26. Of these, 2,41,433 (63.6%) were transport vehicles while 1,38,319 (36.4%) were non-transport vehicles. Personal electric two-wheelers accounted for 1,08,563 registrations, or nearly 29% of all EVs added during the year.
Lucknow leads, followed by Agra, Noida and Kanpur
Lucknow emerged as the state’s largest EV market with 33,103 registrations, accounting for 8.7% of all EVs registered during the year. The capital recorded 19,619 transport EVs and 13,484 non-transport vehicles, including 9,821 personal electric two-wheelers. Registrations in the separate Trans Gomti-Lucknow office added another 4,792 EVs, taking the broader Lucknow region’s total close to 38,000.
Agra ranked second with 20,320 registrations but displayed a very different adoption pattern. More than 14,600 of its EVs belonged to the non-transport category, including over 13,000 personal electric scooters and motorcycles, the highest such figure in the state. Nearly two-thirds of all EVs registered in Agra were personal electric two-wheelers.
Noida followed with 19,758 registrations and stood out as the state’s leading electric car market, with over 7,600 electric cars registered. Unlike most districts where two-wheelers dominate personal EV ownership, Noida’s non-transport segment was led by electric cars.
Kanpur Nagar, with 18,755 registrations, exhibited a strongly commercial profile, with transport vehicles accounting for nearly three-fourths of all EV registrations. Prayagraj completed the top five with 14,379 registrations.
E-rickshaws backbone of UP’s EV transition
The single largest driver of EV adoption in UP continues to be the e-rickshaw segment. Passenger e-rickshaws alone accounted for 1,40,998 registrations during the year, representing 58.4% of all transport EVs and over 37% of total EV registrations.
Prayagraj led the state with 6,402 e-rickshaw registrations, followed by Mathura, Lucknow, Moradabad and Bareilly. The figures underscore how the state’s electric mobility transition is being powered primarily by last-mile transport and livelihood-oriented vehicles rather than private car ownership.
Sharp regional disparities
The data also reveals significant geographical concentration. Only 18 of the state’s 76 transport offices exceeded the statewide average of nearly 5,000 EV registrations. The top five offices together accounted for more than 1.06 lakh registrations, or about 28% of the state total.
Kashi breaks from the trend
Varanasi presented a different picture from most major cities. Of its 10,137 EV registrations during 2025-26, more than 7,400 were personal-use vehicles, including 6,672 electric scooters and motorcycles. This means private buyers rather than commercial operators accounted for most of the city’s EV growth during the year.
The NCR belt comprising Noida, Ghaziabad, Bulandshahr and Hapur collectively registered nearly 40,000 EVs, making it one of the state’s largest EV clusters.
At the other end of the spectrum, districts such as Lalitpur, Sonbhadra, Baghpat, Sant Kabir Nagar and Auraiya recorded fewer than 1,500 EV registrations each.
“EV adoption remains concentrated in major urban centres, tourism hubs and the NCR corridor, while large parts of rural and semi-urban Uttar Pradesh are yet to participate meaningfully in the state’s electric mobility transition,” a senior transport official said.
