[DigitalOne]

Originally Posted by sharninder

Why is the govt running like a headless chicken ? This is probably the 3 or 4th time they've done a U turn or side turn on this policy. How is a business supposed to plan for the future and invest if they can't decide even 5-6 years ahead.

If any industry/company can't think 5-6 years down the line and depends on government policy to tell them where and what technology to invest, they deserve to fail. None of the real revolutionary shifts (except probably space travel) happened because of government "policy". Did Elon Musk wait for government policy before starting Tesla? He (and other investors) made his bet, and going with it. Similarly, I am sure high level top level managements of any automobile companies have their own strategies to deal with the EV opportunity/threat (as they see it) and not waiting for a "policy" from the government.

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Many have written regarding charging infrastructure:
It may be not as difficult as many seem to think. Consider this, any new real estate residential projects, hotels, airports (now being built in Blr, Mumbai, Noida etc), office complexes are incorporate charging infrastructure in their design. It need not be after thought for projects starting now.

Lo and behold, any real estate with inbuilt charging infrastructure becomes more valuable 3-4 years down the line; that starts the scramble for older buildings to refactor it. Market dynamics takes over.

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God save fresh engineers who enter auto industry and are put in further research in ICE projects.

The mindset change is already happening. Get on the right side.

[bullock-Car]

I think this is good move by government. The many factors i.e. too many policy changes (BSIV,,BSVI, diesel flipflop), fierce competetion, electric cars on horizon were making life difficult for the manufacturers. Also government should not dictate the technology choices (Classic case GSM Vs CDMA), but put relevent emission goals which drives the technology. Let industry decide to meet these goals,using relevent technologies.
I believe IC to hybrid is the intermediate step. The electric vehicles have certainly shown the way but we have not fully seen full life cycle (lithium availability, battery disposal,battery technology breakthrough) to be adopted worldwide on large scale to replace IC engines.

[payeng]

SANITY at last.


Instead of dictating forced adpotion of technology, it should focus on what the Govt. can actually do. What the Govt. needs to forcus on is to improve Public Conveyance.

Why would anyone like to spend hours trapped in traffic if he/she can commute in comfort and punctuality of a Metro Train? The Delhi Metro is a good example, its service is great but the reach is still not adequate for NCR.

[jayguar]

Originally Posted by DigitalOne

If any industry/company can't think 5-6 years down the line and depends on government policy to tell them where and what technology to invest, they deserve to fail.

I disagree. A lot of big decisions not just in automobile industry but most of the industry depends on Government policies. Its not a single decision but multiple decisions that come together over a period of time. If there is an initial announcement by the Government on a new policy or policy change, the companies begin to plan. But the decisions are not made immediately. So if the Government keeps changing their decision on the policies, the decision making in the companies get delayed too. Until a policy is clearly defined, a company specially in the automotive sector cannot make a clear decision. A decision made too early before a policy announcement has the possibility of incurring losses for the companies. Tesla's case was entirely different. They are in a different market with a different Government and better infrastructure. Moreover Tesla had been making losses consistently before the Model 3 was launched.

[DigitalOne]

Originally Posted by bullock-Car

I think this is good move by government. The many factors i.e. too many policy changes (BSIV,,BSVI, diesel flipflop), fierce competetion, electric cars on horizon were making life difficult for the manufacturers. Also government should not dictate the technology choices (Classic case GSM Vs CDMA), but put relevent emission goals which drives the technology. Let industry decide to meet these goals,using relevent technologies.

This is the right approach for any government. Put in regulations (what is to be done), than policies/Strategies. Industry/companies are better placed to implement using whatever strategies to achieve the regulation.

Unfortunately, in India, even the courts get in frequently to put in new regulations(e.g. banning 10 year old diesels in NCR), rather than the government, thus bringing in another layer of inconsistency. But that is another debate.

Originally Posted by jayguar

I disagree.

See my point above about difference between regulations and policy/strategy.

To compare to a different industry like Software (albeit, I agree that for companies it is easier to change IT strategy than in auto sector). All companies are moving from old-style on-premise software to cloud software. There is no "policy" by the government. All the government makes are regulations that data should be stored locally or there should be private data protection. Cloud infrastructure providers are setting up (like Microsoft or Amazon) are thus setting up data centers in India.

Originally Posted by jayguar

Tesla's case was entirely different. They are in a different market with a different Government and better infrastructure. Moreover Tesla had been making losses consistently before the Model 3 was launched.

You are actually supporting what I say. There will be individual companies who will make strategic bets on technology required to achieve the regulations. Toyota goes Hybrid, Tesla went electric, Google/Uber goes optimizing usage of shared cars etc. Some will succeed, some won't. They aren't waiting for government policies. I am sure neither are companies in India. All the noise they are making are just that.

[sharninder]

Originally Posted by DigitalOne

If any industry/company can't think 5-6 years down the line and depends on government policy to tell them where and what technology to invest, they deserve to fail.

The same can be said of the govt too, right ?


All companies everywhere in the world depend on the govt to provide policy direction. No one is here to spend money on R&D without realising profits and those profits come only if there is a policy push especially in regulated industries.
Space travel came from the govt and its only after 50-60 years of govt sponsored space travel, we're starting to see private investment in the field.

[guru_max]

Let the markets decide when will go to full EV mode. Of course, government should provide incentives in the form of subsidies and lower taxes to EVs. We will follow the global market as all the companies are planning EVs in one form of another. Many of these will make it to India eventually.



And let's face it, even if the government plans for it, they will never have a solution in time to account for the increased electricity demand. We will see a lot of jugaad charging options in the medium term.

[anjan_c2007]

Always happens when the policy makers are inept and inexperienced. Such statements did a lot of harm to the automobile industry by hurting customer sentiments and creating nebulous situations in umpteen cases. The potential car/bike buyer was perplexed as to whether he should go for EV's or ICE's. And in EV range, the choice is of the Hobson's kind ! EV prices are astronomical (despite the GST sops) and the range in kms for all make of EV's is awfully low. The infrastructure is almost non-existent. There is no EV policy on paper.

The automobile industry was also shocked and became directionless with options ranging between the sagging sales, BS VI and EV's all hanging over their heads like the sword of Damocles".

And in this backdrop, such arbitrary policy announcements from people who matter, were hare-brained and smacked of immaturity and brashness. Its good to note that the policy makers have retracted after getting shocks from all concerned quarters. But the damage caused is irreversible.

[srini1785]

Found this piece of info today.

https://www.thehindubusinessline.com...le29279487.ece

Note the logic : no chinese dependence for lithium. Details of the type of material which would substitute lithium is not mentioned. Probably this information is intentionally withheld as the govt does not want speculators from hoarding the material. Recently , IISC reported developing a iron ion battery. The fact that IOCL is taking the lead on Battery tech also makes me wonder if Govt is also thinking of using IOCL's vast network of retail outlets as some sort of charging / swapping stations for these batteries. It does make sense to me.

[sgiitk]

We will be lucky to reach it even a decade later. Things are sluggish. afaik no charging stations in UP yet. Unless we have a good charging infrastructure going ahead imho will be silly. Even now in Gurugram there are about three load shedding events a day. A motorist wll be very upset to have a failure when he is recharging on the road. What is the status in the hinterland?