By AUTOASTRA Editorial · 30 Sept 2026 · Electric
Ashok Leyland and IIT Madras launch GET ZET, a 40-city electric truck drive from Chennai that runs till February 2027 across 15 states and Delhi.
Ashok Leyland, working with the Centre of Excellence for Zero Emission Trucking at IIT Madras, has kicked off a 40-city demonstration drive to push awareness and acceptance of battery-electric trucks in India. Named GET ZET, short for Electric Truck Awareness to Acceptance, the programme began in Chennai on 29/09/2026 and will run until February 2027, moving through logistics hubs and industrial corridors across 15 states and Delhi.
The drive puts Ashok Leyland's BOSS Electric truck and its charging setup in front of the people who actually decide fleet purchases: fleet owners, logistics operators, financiers, load providers, charging infrastructure companies and policymakers. Drivers get hands-on trial rides, a deliberate attempt to answer the operating questions that specification sheets never fully settle. Shenu Agarwal, Managing Director and CEO of Ashok Leyland, said the transition to zero-emission mobility will be defined by the confidence of users to adopt it at scale.
| Programme Detail | GET ZET Drive |
| Cities covered | 40 |
| Duration | September 2026 to February 2027 |
| Geography | 15 states and Delhi |
| Vehicle demonstrated | Ashok Leyland BOSS Electric with charging setup |
| Organisers | Ashok Leyland with CoEZET, IIT Madras |
The context explains the urgency. India's three-wheeler segment is already over 60 percent electric, but heavy trucks remain almost entirely diesel, and the sector carries an outsized share of the country's vehicular pollution and fuel import bill. The government has earmarked ₹500 crore specifically for electric trucks under the ₹11,900 crore PM E-DRIVE scheme, and the Ministry of Heavy Industries has separately asked vehicle makers, through SIAM, to help build assured charging coverage on 60 high-priority highway corridors. For a sector-level view of how India's charging build-out is actually tracking, read our EV infrastructure deep dive on AUTOINDIA.
For fleet operators, this is a low-risk way to see an electric truck in the metal, drive it and interrogate the economics before committing capital. For everyone else, it is an early signal that electric trucking is moving from conference slides to truck stops in your state. Expect charging announcements to follow the drive's route. More commercial vehicle coverage is on AUTOINDIA.
(Sources: ETAuto, cmv360.com, Ministry of Heavy Industries PM E-DRIVE scheme documents, Rubix Data Sciences report)
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