How India Is Looking To Replace The Traditional Vehicles With EVs

Electric vehicles are foreseen as the future of the transportation in various countries especially those hit by severe air pollution, as other than the traditional diesel and petrol diesel vehicles are using an electric motor  for its propulsion. Electric vehicles mainly comprises of a battery which is charged before running through electricity supply. The energy generated from charge is thereafter stored in the lithium batteries and then stored energy is used to power the electric motor in the vehicle. While the concept of electric vehicles comprises of various types such as electric cars, trucks, buses, electric bikes, electric scooters, electric trains which are already in use, etc. whereas, amongst all of these mentioned the manufacturing and employing the electric cars which is the biggest scenario to make India a pollution free nation along with the prospective of safeguarding the petroleum products for future. Currently the leading companies which are into manufacturing of the Electric Vehicles are BMW, Tesla, Chevrolet, Nissan, Kia, Ford and Volkswagen.

Common Benefits of Electric Vehicles:

Cost Effectiveness: With the advantage of the advanced technology along with dedicated Research & Development, both the maintenance and cost of the electric vehicles has also gone down. Government is also subsidizing and incentivizing the usage and manufacturing of Electric Vehicles especially cars by granting subsidies through various aspects and lowering the motor taxes on Electric Vehicles.

Eco Friendly: EVs are seen as 100 percent eco-friendly product which will help to curb the pollution. They are popular due to the fact that they do not emit any kind of toxic gases or hazardous smoke in the environment which may add up to the global warming and thereby helps to lower the pollution levels. 

Best use of renewable energy: As the main thing needed to run electric vehicles is electricity which is majorly produced and shifted towards various renewable sources such as solar power or hydro projects and also from such sources that tends to emit no greenhouse gases which may affect the environment and increase the pollution levels thus Electric Vehicles will help in maintaining the energy secure by the concept of shifting the dependency of electricity from non- renewable resources to the pollution free renewable resources.

Lower Maintenance costs: Electric vehicles have comparatively lower maintenance cost as it require very less maintenance in comparison to the traditional vehicles as it consists of very fewer fluids and excluding liquids like oil and transmission fluid so as to change and very less moving parts. 

Reduced Noise pollution: Electric vehicles have this great advantage that they are quieter to use and operate in comparison to the gasoline-powered vehicles, thus leading to very low noise pollution and increasing the concept of living freely.

That currently the global markets of Electric vehicles are fluently gaining the momentum which is towards the target which is set up by the Electric Vehicle initiative (EVI) of Governments for the global deployment of at least 20 million electric vehicles by the end of 2020, but the concept of Electric vehicles in India are still at its starting phase but in the current year we expecting some local companies to come up with good electric vehicles to come up on the roads and reduce the pollution levels along with increasing the cost effectiveness.

How India is ready to achieve its targets:

India in past has manufactured and used Electric Locomotives indigenously and successfully which are used to pull the train coaches with around thousands of ton of the carrying load. It not only helped to save the traditional fuel like petrol, coal and diesel but has also curbed the pollution levels and saved the environment. Therefore, India is not new into it and developing a plant for manufacturing the electric bikes and cars is not a hurdle.

According to a report on the assessment done by NITI Aayog, India is heading towards to save almost 64% of the traditional fuel that is anticipated to be used by passenger on a road-based and mobility related demand of energy and curb the carbon emissions by 37% in 2030 by achieving an electric and sharing mobility future.

This may also result in a reduced demand of petrol and diesel by almost 156 mega ton consumption for the year 2030. Thus even if calculated at USD 52/barrel of crude, India may achieve a savings of around Rs 3.9 lakh crore (approximately 60 billion USD) in the fiscal year 2030. Thus the luring figures indicates that there is an urgent requirement of an hour to make efforts for replacement of the traditional petrol and diesel vehicles with the electric vehicles to save life and money.

While there are many prominent passenger vehicle manufacturing companies in India such as Maruti Suzuki India, Mahindra and Mahindra & Hero Electric Vehicles which are already registered as an electric vehicle manufacturers in India, while there are some latest collaborations like Suzuki and Toyota, are planning to come together to launch the electric vehicles.

On the same plan India’s first Electric Vehicle Manufacturer Company Mahindra and Mahindra had united with the Ford group to develop the electric mobility solutions which will come up with an affordable segment for the Indian consumers.

As India ranked 13 among the world’s 20 most polluted countries in the world. The main part is of the Vehicular pollution that contribute to air pollution. India falls in the group of those countries which has the highest particulate matter (PM) levels. While some Indian cities also have the highest levels of PM10 and PM2.5. These figures are almost six times of the figure given by WHO as “safe” limit of 25 micrograms and thus urge the need for Electrical Vehicles.

As a signatory and vital part of the Paris climate agreement, India has confirmed and is obligated to bring down its contribution of global emissions by the end of 2030. Thus launch of National E-Mobility Programme is done by Government of India and also it is planning the guidelines to encourage such vehicles to promote EVs in India.

How India is facing problems:

As Indians prefer petrol, diesel or gas driven cars and are used to it. As due slow pick up, slow speed and non-availability of electric charging centres in their area people are not ready to buy and use the electric cars.

When sales of electric cars grew up at the rate of 94% from 2011 to 2015 worldwide, led by US, China and Europe. Indian market could attract the sale of only 22,000 units of EVs by March 2016, of which only 2,000 were four wheelers. 

Ola’s ambitious Electric Vehicle project in Nagpur had faced a setback in just 9 months of its launch, as it faced major problems with Ola drivers who desired to return the electric cars and opt to petrol or diesel variants. The main reason was operating expenses and a long waiting time at the charging stations.

In 2015, despite the government had launched Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Hybrid and Electric Vehicles (FAME), it is a scheme which offers incentives for using clean fuel technology cars with objective of boosting up sales of EVs. But the scheme received a lukewarm response.

By: Anuja Arora