[Rahul Rao]

I'm a Pune resident. In the last year I used my Terrano Diesel Manual for 48000 km of this there were 23 one day trips where the days run was between 450km and 700 km to places like Belgaum, Vapi, Aurangabad, etc totaling about 13000km. All other days the car did trips to places like Mumbai, Patalganga MIDC, Ahmednagar MIDC, Satara MIDC, etc. In Mumbai my Grandparent's home where my sister currently stays I have a place to set up my own charging point, all other trips were within 150 and 250km which is doable in a single charge.
Other than this my Petrol AT Ecosport that is used in city did a bit under 10000 km and the longest trip was 1100 km to Akola, Shegaon and Buldhana just after Divali. The AT was chosen for the highway with rush and traffic jam in mind.

Even if I change one car to AT with usable 250km range, these 24 trips will go over to the IC engine car that I will retain. If the usable range crosses 350 km, then I can try to arrange charging points elsewhere and do more electric use.

[uditsharma01]

Voted Yes for weekdays, no for weekends

My weekday commute is around 60 kms and EVs would easily cut in. During weekends my run is mostly on highways ranging 200-300 kms. Now, this is tricky. It is well within the EV range but you know anxiety kicks in. It is quite justified too. We don't have enough infrastructure to cater EVs for long rage commutes. Do we?

[ramnaresh_2000]

Originally Posted by Researcher

Also one may argue, if we can rent for highway trips if we have a short range EV, why can't we use cabs for movement inside the city instead of owning a 250 kilometer range EV?

Ever heard of surge and cab cancellations? During peak hours I sometimes get 3X surge and during short distance bookings they get cancelled and it increases the price automatically. Also cabs are totally unreliable, we cannot live at the mercy of cab drivers can we?

Do we go on highway trip every weekend? I don't think so unless and until you are a travel buff, but you do travel every weekday to office right? So renting rarely on weekends or borrowing a car from family or friends during weekend drives is way better option than cabs for movement inside the city. Also cities require more EV's than highways thanks to pollution.

[Researcher]

Originally Posted by ramnaresh_2000

Ever heard of surge and cab cancellations? During peak hours I sometimes get 3X surge and during short distance bookings they get cancelled and it increases the price automatically. Also cabs are totally unreliable, we cannot live at the mercy of cab drivers can we?

Do we go on highway trip every weekend? I don't think so unless and until you are a travel buff, but you do travel every weekday to office right? So renting rarely on weekends or borrowing a car from family or friends during weekend drives is way better option than cabs for movement inside the city. Also cities require more EV's than highways thanks to pollution.

I do agree with your point. However, if one has to stick to a single vehicle (which many of us have to), an EV with a range of 250 kilometers may not solve all the requirements, at least with the current charging infrastructure and speed.
And you are absolutely right about EVs needed in cities for curbing air pollution. Let us just hope that disposing the batteries some years down the line doesn't create some unseen environmental issue. I had seen a video somewhere, probably an old Top Gear episode, where they did say that manufacturing a Prius requires shipping battery related equipment across continents, probably negating all the environmental benefits that the car provides.

[ramnaresh_2000]

Originally Posted by Researcher

I do agree with your point. However, if one has to stick to a single vehicle (which many of us have to), an EV with a range of 250 kilometers may not solve all the requirements, at least with the current charging infrastructure and speed.
And you are absolutely right about EVs needed in cities for curbing air pollution. Let us just hope that disposing the batteries some years down the line doesn't create some unseen environmental issue. I had seen a video somewhere, probably an old Top Gear episode, where they did say that manufacturing a Prius requires shipping battery related equipment across continents, probably negating all the environmental benefits that the car provides.

Agree, However thanks to FAME II scheme, which will be implemented somewhere in 2020, every national highway will have a EV charging station for every 25 kms, which I think is more than enough. Government is also in talks with major gas companies to install EV chargers in their gas stations. We are heading up in the right direction.

Cannot comment on the prius example, as of now Tata Nexon EV, Tigor EV, e-Verito are all made in India with batteries made in India as well. Only Kona is a direct import i believe but not sure. MG ZS EV will also change the EV situation in India. My office is now offering EV cabs for employees and charging points for employee EV vehicles.

Disposing batteries might be a challenge, but most of companies are offering 5 years warranty, I am sure they are confident on the technology they offer. Nexon EV gets 8 years battery warranty. Remember, after 5-8 years the battery disposing technology may be much better than current engine oil and CO2 emissions we see daily.

[V.Narayan]

For all of us who are concerned about lack of infrastructure to support EVs a short lesson from history.

In the decade 1895 to 1905 which saw the ICE car come of age the new owners of ICE also faced the same problem of lack of infrastructure - lack of adequate petrol pumps, lack of repair and servicing facilities and worse lack of smooth roads. Roads at the turn of the 20th century were either pressed mud tracks or in the posher ares of big cities macadam roads or in Europe often brick laid roads. You can imagine what the ride must have been on macadam or brick roads with primitive suspension and thin tyres. Where avialability of petrol went it was not just a matter of retail delivery points but the creation globally of the entire supply chain from the oil wells to cope with the new demand to refining to transportation to retail to establishing standards of the composition and quality of the fuel. By and by in 10 to 15 years things changed completely. With the push of Govt policies across all major economies and the public sentiment on global climate change I suspect EV related infrastructure will come sooner.

[shankar.balan]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

Question for our members and readers -

"If the price of petrol/diesel reaches Rs 150 per litre ( at today's value of the INR) what would your response be on the adequacy of an EV with a range of 250 kms."

In India right now we pay about 90 Rs for Petrol
When we go out of the country we pay the equivalent of Rs 100+ for Petrol
If ones running isn’t much - say around 1000 kms a month or so, including the highway as well as in city use, then I am guessing most people will live with the price increase of petrol the way we always have done, all these years.

However, we all know the fantastic plus points in terms of lower running costs of EV’s and the lack of maintenance because of lack of many moving parts. So, I d say that the moment the EV infra for charging becomes a little more freely available, and the range of the said EV increases under heavy load conditions as I illustrated in an earlier post, then I am very sure that more of us Consumers will go for an EV.

But there is always a little resistance to sudden change, as in everything in life!

[Ravi Parwan]

I think the biggest deterrent to the swap-ability of a battery pack is its weight and transportation.
The weight of batteries of higher capacity (60-100 kWh) for electric automobiles is in the range of 385-544 kg, while the gross weight of the automobiles is in the range of 2050-3070 kg.
secondly, the battery is located centrally in an EV, for crash protection and safety. that goes against the requirement of easy swap-ability.
In the end I would leave all of you with a simple question - How many of you use 2 batteries for your mobiles? (the ones with swappable batteries)

[StarrySky]

I voted Yes for weekdays, No for weekends.

It's not as if we jump into the car every weekend and make long trips. If a manufacturer claims 250-km, I assume I would get a bit less than that if I get on the motorway and hug the 120-km speed limit. That means stopping for 30 minutes or so every 2 hours. Based on current EV specs, even a 30-minute charge can at best charge up to only 80%, so I can add only 200-km range in 30 minutes for a 250-km range car. This means my next stop will be in less than 2 hours. I think a 250-km range is just too restrictive for highway trips.

[46TheDoctor]

250 km range maybe enough for people who use their cars in city for more than 95% of the times. But, its not workable at all for people who need to do frequent outstation trips for whatever reasons. First of all, i will never depend on 100% of the possible range of 250 km, i will assume at the max 80% range to be usable and 20 % buffer, so it will come down to 200 km. Now, there is currently no fast charging infrastructure anywhere, and even if it is set up on highways, spending approximately 1 hr for fast charging of 80% capacity isnt possible all the time during work travels.

Any outstation trip to and fro from my place is somewhere between 300-500 km, also even if i am traveling longer distances, i normally cover 400-500 km per day with our ICE cars. So, for an EV to replace my ICE car, it needs to have a practical range of minimum 450-500 km, so that i can charge it overnight at my home or at the place where i am halting overnight during longer drives.

If this requirement isnt met by the EV, i will have to retain my ICE car for highway travels and use the EV for city use only, which will neither be environment friendly nor pocket friendly since i will be forced to maintain two cars for the job of one.

[RK79]

A 250 km range would suffice daily office run for most people. My daily running is 40 km and a 250 km range would give around 5 days in between charging. But for an occasional holiday trip, this range might fall short. For that may be a rent a car can solve the issue or a second car on fossil fuel can come in handy. An electric car is a very good practical solution for week days

[hkollar]

220-250km of on a highway at the speed of around 80-100Kmph is approximately 3hrs drive. And that's a good time to take a break.

All that is needed is fast chargers that can recharge the car to provide another 200km in under 1hr. If that can happen then you can cover about 400-500km distance in a day easily.

For city, even 200+ km is more than adequate, even without interday charging. Speaking from experience of 5 years of E2O ownership, I had the range anxiety only once in 5yrs, even that was unnecessary at the end of my 85km drive, I still have over 14% charge left.

[Ithaca]

Read an interesting thread about the future of Hybrid EVs on twitter today.
The author - Anshul Khare @anshul81 - postulates the following

In the new EV hybrids will still have an IC engine, not meant to power the wheels directly. It will act as backup for charging the battery.

In fact, when IC engine runs only to charge the car battery, its operational efficiency is way more higher than conventional automobiles.

Source: https://twitter.com/anshul81/status/1215142590602833921

[landcruiser123]

^^ Such an idea is already implemented in the Chevy Volt for a few years now. Volt had a 40 mile EV only range when it came out.

Superior EVs are making the idea irrelevant. Why carry the weight of an engine, hoses, gas tank, ancillaries, generator etc when you can have a supercharger and a bigger battery?

[Turbanator]

Let me share from my own experience; my Son exchanged his Wrangler with Model 3 around five months back. He has the regular two-wheel variant with a range of about 400 Km. Most of his commutes here in Edmonton works well on Electricity. He will charge the car overnight usually around 60-70 % (to preserve battery life- don't know how far is his understanding correct) and he has no problems whatsoever driving a 60-80 Km round trip to his university or part-time work. He had driven around 8000 Km in these five months with few trips to Calgary, which is about 350 Km one way.

We made a day trip to Calgary last week; the car was entirely charged at home overnight and then we had to break for charge midway at Red Deer as the car would not do 350 Km to Calgary due to weather conditions or whatever. Tesla has a Super Charger, and we got about 80 % of the battery in 10-15 minutes that we spent at McD for a quick coffee. Continued our journey and reached Calgary shopping mall, which had a slow charger with around 80 Km range. About 1 hour of shopping time added 40 Km range on the regular charger and cost us $1,5. After shopping, we went to another end of the city for dinner and meeting my brother. We were left with about 40 Km range when we started our ride back home. There's a fast charger on the way back, a high-speed charger which gave us about 80 % in 15 minutes from almost 10 % and we continued way back to Edmonton. We had to stop the same way on return at Red Deer for 15 minutes to get charge enough to take us back home. My son wanted to stay another 5 minutes, but I insisted on moving as we had about 30 % more range than required. My mistake, I will say. As the temperature plummets, the distance travelled, and the Battery range was not in sync. We were losing about 25-30 % more, so for every 10 km of distance moved, the range was getting lessened by 13 km or so. Reduced speeds to about 110 as against usual 120 and somehow managed to reach home without any incidents with an almost empty battery.

Now the takeaways from this experience are many, even in developed countries with a lot of infrastructures, we cannot rely upon EV for long-distance travel yet especially if you are impatient or have some timelines to meet. I didn't discuss with my family but had a surprise holiday planned ahead of Calgary to Jasper. The idea was to visit Calgary and then go to Jasper and come back to Edmonton, its sort of triangle. But when I discussed with my Son on reaching Calgary, there are no Superchargers yet beyond the Trans Canada highway after Banff. So we have to get the car charged at Destination chargers which take about 10-12 hours. And since we had only one spare day, had to come back directly.

I will say, at this point of time, Electric car can work as a second car at home and not as a primary. Of course, one can say that's not the case as my Son never agrees but I see many restrictions. With no SuperChargers and no Tesla or VW Grid to support, here in India it's going to be very tough.

I will not at all recommend anyone buying an Electric Car yet if that's the only car in the home. The guys who are Ok with a day trip to work and maybe an evening occasional outing can do easily the same on Uber/ Ola at cheap rates in India. This may not be the right analogy but for me, owning a transport which can make you immobile just because of the lack of energy does not look right. The freedom/ independence is simply not yet there with Electric cars in my opinion.