[greenhorn]

What a difference Professional Lobbying makes

The Reva Waited for ages for something like this, and unfortunately, nothing happened. It gets acquired by one of the big boys, and and see how the wheels start turning!

[vinya_jag]

My answer: Yes

Today, electricity generation might be a costly affair, and in India, we are highly ineffcient in the way we generate and transport power.
But, it was only 3 years before now that the diesel petrol disparity grew, and now we see more than 50% of the cars on the road run the noisy, smelly version of cars.

Assume this scenario
Electric cars are to cost half of what they cost today.
Leaf and Tesla immediately make their way into this country.
The swatch car comes in as well.
Now, the urban population will go behind the snazzy swatch. Some even buy the leaf.
Biggies buy the Tesla
Reva gets newer versions to compete with the swatch.

Bangalore roads are now having their fair share of electric cars.
One day, this reaches enormous proportions that Bescom runs out of electricity.
Now a private vendor comes out and says, he is going to provide electricity and pumps to electric vehicles, for a quick charge.
Each apartment gets a stack parking with charging points run by a private elec provider.
Each area has few such charging bays, where you park the car to charge during the night.

India signs the nuclear pact
Gets uranium from Australia
Extracts thorium out of the chennai coast.
Dump all the residues on the moon

Okay, was letting my imagination wild, and went too far

We need problems to solve, and we need the govt to make the grape reachable. Not to introduce new hurdles on its way, just to protect the burly car industry.

[byomjeet]

It will be definitely beneficial.

My worry is not about theft or or something else. Theft or any other issue can be handled with good vigilant eyes by the authorities.

My worry is about the carbon footprint.
With the preset state of energy production in the country, are we really going to reduce the carbon footprint by using electric vehicles? We will be using the power produced mainly by thermal power plants where the fossil fuel is burned to produce energy. That way we are using more refined form of fossil fuel instead of petrol or diesel.

We need to resort to renewable sources of energy like nuclear power, solar power or wind turbine generators to reduce our carbon footprint.

Nevertheless, Govt. should provide subsidies to promote clean/green fuel vehicles.

[k_nitin_r]

Originally Posted by byomjeet

My worry is about the carbon footprint.

I have always thought the electric cars getting their energy from coal-burning power stations harm the environment more than a petrol or diesel burning engine in a car. I may be wrong though, considering that the shortage of petrol or diesel leads to increased fuel exploration activity whereas coal is comparatively more plentiful in mines.

We could resort to nuclear fusion reactors and send our nuclear wastes to pluto (or the approach of burying them deep beneath the ground in lead containers, assuming the containers aren't likely to leak), or figure out a way to control nuclear fission reactions for electricity generation but that's wishful thinking.

[Samurai]

Or we spend more on research to figure out a cheap way to split hydrogen from water. I want to see that happen in my lifetime.

[charanreddy]

Voted Yes. Electric cars subsidy leading to lower emissions in the Cities where pollution is a problem is very welcome. High on-road price along with limited range is in my opinion the key challenge for adoption of these vehicles. All the govt needs to do is remove the VAT and/or registration cost and they have already given a significant subsidy while removing the middle man. If the result of all these is a basic electric car at an on-road price of INR 4 to 5L(at the risk of sounding too optimistic, direct competition to the likes of Alto, Eon etc.), I can see many families going for an electric vehicle as their second car.

[honeybee]

Originally Posted by greenhorn

What a difference Professional Lobbying makes

The Reva Waited for ages for something like this, and unfortunately, nothing happened. It gets acquired by one of the big boys, and and see how the wheels start turning!

In fact after M&M acquired Reva the subsidy was withdrawn. Rather the subsidy expired in 2012 March and hasn't been revived, despite lobbying by the big boy.

[greenhorn]

Originally Posted by honeybee

In fact after M&M acquired Reva the subsidy was withdrawn. Rather the subsidy expired in 2012 March and hasn't been revived, despite lobbying by the big boy.

If i recall correctly, the subsidy was announced in Nov 2010, after the Reva acquisition in March 2010. The MNRE ran out of cash, so now they're waiting for someone else to foot the bill

[groom]

India has very high dependency on coal generated electricity. partly hydro too. The demand of electricity will further rise. Currently we are unable to sustain the electricity needs of farm and industrial sectors. Adding the electricity subsidy on cars will create a new problem. We just shift our dependency from fuel to coal.

But we may be successfully able to move away from external dependency (import of fuel) to internal dependency.

After having a firm resolution and moving away from dependency we may be able to sustain.

Originally Posted by Samurai

Or we spend more on research to figure out a cheap way to split hydrogen from water. I want to see that happen in my lifetime.

This idea seems flawed. Sometime back patent office stopped issuing any patents that come through this way.
Reason - By splitting hydrogen, and then burning hydrogen as fuel, we get water. So the entire process will create an energy loss (Water --> Water). If there is no energy loss then we have successfully created a perpetual machine,this defies the current laws of energy mass conservation. which the world over invention offices are not accepting.

[thecoolsundar]

Every Indian Electric vehicle manufacturer imports atleast 2 components. The Battery and the Controller. These components account for a significant portion of the cost of the electric vehicle.

Unless these are indigenized, any subsidy amounts to subsidizing a Chinese, European or American manufacturer.

The subsidy is required, both from the perspective of environmental conservation and reducing imports of petroleum (and therefore reducing the dollar outflow), however, the focus should be to drive innovation in electric vehicle technology within the country rather than providing a blanket subsidy.

[Grace]

" If there were to be ,lets say 20% rebate on electric / Hybrid vehicles, Would you buy it?" ---- I would sure buy it.

Your thoughts please

Andy

[Omairs]

Originally Posted by deep_bang

This debate is a different one altogether. There have been innumerable debates on whether electricity is really good or not.

My take is that, as a country the government should look at investment in technology, which may or may not yield returns in the future. The reason is, if the government does not do that, no private party will ever make an investment. But its important to own technology because we dont know how the future is going to pan out.

For instance, may be as solar panels will become cheaper, 5 years down we may be powering our cars with electricity generated from Solar power - may be - but we need to have technology to manage it at that time.

So, i really do support the subsidy as either way the adoption will be quite low as the battery technology is still not quite there yet - where people can buy electric cars and have a trouble free 10 years of life. So one can quite safely say that it will not bring a paradigm shift in our transportation sector. But what it does is let our companies test the waters, think about hybrids, and new models that may suit India (think why Hybrids just never worked in India).

Does the subsidy include hybrids as well? I think the sole purpose at the moment should be focused on Energy regeneration systems then plug in vehicles. With cities as big as Bangalore having hours of power shedding pretty much 365 days a year, i don't think we're quite equipped yet to power our cars solely on electricity.

What i do think would bring about a paradigm shift is, like you said, hybrids. We have proved our preference for Diesels, even with the >2l premium. What i think really has the potential to change the market is if the government subsidizes hybrid powertrains with <1.2l displacement petrol engines. More efficient cars = lesser fuel imports = lesser deficits = easy on the consumer's pocket. Petrol cars = Cleaner air = Alternative to diesels. Cheaper than pure electrics, better range, more power, less strain on the grid.

Now if only a car manufacturer could figure out a hybrid power train for under 2l.

[Bluestallion]

There are many factors which need to be considered, and I thought I will bring them in this debate:
1. Though their are many battery chemistries (e.g., Lead Acid, Zinc Air, Lithium Ion, Lithium Polymer, etc.), the only technology reasonably mature enough to provide propulsive (i.e., to move, not just to support accessories) power to the vehicle is Lithium Chemistry based. Lithium Ion by far the best battery chemistry, due to superior performance and lower costs. For instance, the operational costs of Li-Ion batteries are between one third to one fourth of Nickel Cadmium or Nickel Metal Hydride batteries. Now 90% of the world's Lithium is found in one sub continent - South America. Argentina, Chile and Bolivia hold the planet's largest reserves of lithium - with Bolivia alone accounting for 40-45% of the world's total. A Lithium based economy would shift the world's fuel dependence from Middle East to South America - so there are political factors involved.
2. Using other Chemistries requires a nation wide roll out of suitable infrastructure - e.g. we need Zinc salt changing stations - where you can dump your used salt from your car battery and buy fresh Zinc - just like we fill petrol today - obviously it is easier said than done.
3. A better way out is a non plug in hybrid - like Toyota Prius. The Prius is an amazing vehicle - it has just a 1.5 kWh battery compared to 16-20 kWH batteries in the Nissan leafs and GM Volts, but gives 45 mpg of mileage!! It was not originally designed to be a plug in vehicle - you can't charge the battery by plugging in to power. It just operates a motor which takes over, cutting your fuel supply whenever the vehicle crosses 60 kmh. This increases your fuel efficiency manifold. The other two vehicles however are pure electric vehicles - you have to charge them fully and use them. They use 10 times the Lithium a Prius does. So what's needed is that GOVERNMENTS AROUND THE WORLD BAN PLUG IN FULLY ELECTRIC VEHICLES and only permit non plug in hybrid ones. This would means 10 cars could be made HEV for every one car which does not become a PHEV. This is the long term solution to the fuel problem - and we can manage with a combo of oil and electron power for the next couple of hundred years, till solar and other technologies mature.

Will add some more factors to this thread shortly.

[Mohitkumaar]

My opinion is that instead of subsidizing the car, GoI should set up tech research centers for EVs and then license that tech to manufacturers @ low cost. This will mean that instead of the subsidy being a one car/one time dole, it will:

- Bring more jobs to people
- Bring manufacturing costs of EVs down
- Prepare a ground work for current and future electricity powered mobility systems.

[deep_bang]

Originally Posted by Mohitkumaar

My opinion is that instead of subsidizing the car, GoI should set up tech research centers for EVs and then license that tech to manufacturers @ low cost. This will mean that instead of the subsidy being a one car/one time dole, it will: - Bring more jobs to people - Bring manufacturing costs of EVs down - Prepare a ground work for current and future electricity powered mobility systems.

Noble thought. But I don't think it will work.
Why? Because a government establishment historically is woefully slow and hardly do we have examples which really standout as key innovation centres apart from some of the defence establishments and ISRO. How do we ensure that this proposed government establishment will work like ISRO or the defence establishments (I have a huge respect for them).