eVehicle Challenges and Opportunities
India’s ambitious eVehicle drive
Do you know, living is Delhi is equal to smoking more than 50 cigarettes per day? Is it not dreadful?
WHO declared 14 out of 20 most polluted cities are in India.
As a measure, India committed to reduce 35% of 2005 level GHG emissions by 2030 as part of Paris Climate agreement.
As part of curbing down global emission India is driving its action on various sectors like boosting renewable energy like Solar, Wind power, leveraging natural gas, environmental policies, various substitutes for coals with biofuels, to reduce the demand on conventional fossil fuels.
Target is to achieve 175GW by 2022 and 400GW by 2030. So far achieved 90GW from renewable resources.
Other factors considering in eVehicle push is also to reduce oil import, and sustainable energy production.
NITI AAYOG sets clear target of achieving 100% electric vehicle in India by 2030.
eVehicle in Indian Context
Vehicle owner population growth per 1000 between 2001 to 2015 has grown to 167 per 1000 from 53 per 1000 in 2001
India is predominantly dominated by 2W market. Any measures in curbing down the pollution will yield great results in controlling the emissions.
Barriers for eVehicle change
Vehicle costs which include Battery costs which is around 50–60% of the total vehicle costs. High-cost Li-ion battery is the viable solution in-terms of charge density, yielding to the maximum KM coverage.
Niti AAYOG boost the domestic market to optimize the production of battery industries in India and reduce its component imports.
Charging Infrastructure & Charing time — this is the key barrier currently in India and demands more such units, at least 1charging station per km range in the main cities and also turbo charging takes min of 1.5h and normal home regular charging @8h
Range coverage anxieties by the owners in aligning to the charging infrastructure also pose a great challenge.
For example, a person driving from Bangalore to Chennai in TATA NEXON which has a mileage range of ~300km has to charge somewhere near Sriperumbudur to reach the Chennai City Central or swap battery at that km range.
Hence due to this, eCar are perfect fit of city driving rather than extended drive.
Poor resale value, due to ageing / efficiency of the battery and propulsion motor, as these two are the main components
Opportunities
All these pains mentioned above, offer a great opportunity for innovation and new product development.
I recently read about an interesting article on BATTERY ATM, battery can be swapped without waiting to get charged full.
Lot of such innovations happening like — accelerated charging time, battery chemistry dynamics there by extending for larger ranges with low weight, quicker way of servicing the breakdown at highways..
Conclusion
eVehicle going to be the future without compromise, even though there are quite a few initial barriers to overcome. Countries like India, where abundant source of renewable energy like Solar, Wind the power sector may not face much challenge in terms of coal / fuel import to compensate for the units required for battery charging.
Even a single litre reduction in petrol, diesel costs will multiply in millions to reduce the overall crude oil demand in the country and thereby curb down emission to significant level.
Let’s all gear up to embrace the change!!
