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Old 1st September 2012, 10:30   #1
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Govt to invest 14000 crore in electric vehicle infrastructure

The possibility of saving a whopping Rs 30,000 crore in oil costs over the next 8 years is set to make the government invest heavily in electric vehicles.

The total estimated investment in the plan announced by the National Council for Electric Mobility (NCEM) is expected to be about Rs 23,000 crore. Of this, the government has offered to invest about 60% of the costs, a princely sum of about Rs 14,000 crore over the next 5-6 years, while the auto industry invests the rest.

Announced on August 29, 2012, the National Electric Mobility Mission Plan 2020 (NEMMP 2020) aims to achieve significant implementation of electric and hybrid technologies in Indian cars by 2020. It has set a target of 60-70 lakh units of electric vehicle sales and fuel savings of 22-25 lakh tonnes by the year 2020. It is also expected to substantially lower vehicular emissions.

The policy is expected to benefit manufacturers like Hero Electric and Mahindra Reva.

This is a significant development in the auto industry. Just last week, Mahindra Reva set up a new electric vehicle (EV) manufacturing facility in Bangalore. Now other car manufacturers will also be looking at long-term plans to develop electric and hybrid vehicle technologies. This move also reiterates the government’s focus on promoting electric and hybrid car technologies after the lapse of the EV subsidy scheme earlier this year that caused a 75% drop in sales.
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Old 1st September 2012, 10:42   #2
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Re: Govt to invest 14000 crore in electric vehicle infrastructure

This is a massive subsidy being given to one of the most polluting industries (both before and after production).

How are we going to provide electricity to charge these vehicles - what with our horrible state of power generation?

Also, why is the govt. encouraging further growth of cars on the road (which will involve further infrastructure spending to accommodate them) instead of using the money to improvise existing public transport facilities?
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Old 1st September 2012, 10:54   #3
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Re: Govt to invest 14000 crore in electric vehicle infrastructure

Complete hog wash , the government neither has the money nor the urge to take care of anything but catering to vote banks or lining the pockets of the politicians . Alternative energy car technology is expensive and to promote them needs adequate support as well as tax incentive scheme to popularise its amongst end users - India does not even have an incentivised duty structure for import of critical components to support this industry.
The one logic that really irked me about this article is that the govt wants to support the alternate fuel vehicles to save oil costs - creating the proper physical and tax infrastructure to support these cars takes quite a bit of time so good luck to them who think that 30,000 crores can be chopped off in 8 years. We all know how the govt has completely messed up the clean power generation initiatives , is grappling with massive power shortages , fuel (diesel) subsidy nonsense, etc so anything which needs govt action/support just seems pipe dream at this point of time.
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Old 1st September 2012, 12:28   #4
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Re: Govt to invest 14000 crore in electric vehicle infrastructure

Hmmm.....One more scam in making.
God will there be any end to the appetite of Indian Politicians?
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Old 1st September 2012, 14:54   #5
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Honestly, its not worth spending so much of public money on a sector which is yet to mature. Ofcourse, on the contrary EV market will improve only after such massive investment in Charging point infrastructures,etc. But my point is electric cars are far from perfect, what's with expensive battery and short life time, and on top of that in peak summer in a small town like ours, there is power cuts for a period of upto 8-9hrs. Imagine all the effort in planning your charge period and usage times taking into account the load shedding.
@Govt of India: Please, instead fund the crumbling road and rail infra, encourage people to get off their vehicles. If you are keen on subsidy only, give it to cars with least emissions and made in a eco-friendly way.
Cheers.
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Old 1st September 2012, 19:49   #6
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Re: Govt to invest 14000 crore in electric vehicle infrastructure

[] Where is this amount going to be invested? In greenfield electric gen capacity? What will be the nature of such capacity - thermal/hydro/nuclear/wind?

[] What about investment in electric recharge infrastructure in urban areas? Are we going to emulate the "Better Place" model developed by Aggassi?

[] What kind of batteries will be promoted - the old school Pb ones? What about setting up LiFePo capacity in India? If Li capacity can not be created what will be the import tariff be on Li batteries? If we are going to skip the battery option altogether , as Musk of Tesla is betting it will become redundant due to supercapacitors, where is the tech? Is it going to come to India?

[] What steps are being taken to fiscally incentivise(?) EV/Hybrid over the current fuel choices?

Too many questions. No bloody answers. Just a press release long on good intentions short on facts/specifics, does not make for any meaningful thought/action on the subject.


ps: If anyone thinks I am an EV sceptic because I do not believe in them, please search the forum archives for my earlier posts on the subject, I think they are the future. I am disappointed that the cerebrally challenged cretins who rule our country have not seen the writing on the wall and done enough to make this a viable alternative to ICE(not the music ICE) option.

Last edited by RS_DEL : 1st September 2012 at 19:54.
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Old 1st September 2012, 20:03   #7
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Re: Govt to invest 14000 crore in electric vehicle infrastructure

Quote:
Originally Posted by souravc View Post
Complete hog wash , the government neither has the money nor the urge to take care of anything but catering to vote banks or lining the pockets of the politicians . Alternative energy car technology is expensive and to promote them needs adequate support as well as tax incentive scheme to popularise its amongst end users - India does not even have an incentivised duty structure for import of critical components to support this industry.
The one logic that really irked me about this article is that the govt wants to support the alternate fuel vehicles to save oil costs - creating the proper physical and tax infrastructure to support these cars takes quite a bit of time so good luck to them who think that 30,000 crores can be chopped off in 8 years. We all know how the govt has completely messed up the clean power generation initiatives , is grappling with massive power shortages , fuel (diesel) subsidy nonsense, etc so anything which needs govt action/support just seems pipe dream at this point of time.
Very aptly described. This government knows its tricks very well and loves to make grand announcements of this order while manufacturing a scam out of everything possible under the sky. Actually they had a subsidy scheme for the Reva and electric scooters till the last financial year which ended because of lack of funds. Many Reva and electric scooter dealerships closed down. What I simply don't get is our paid mainstream media has now joined the government in supporting all these false claims while not fact checking even one bit. Not one of them asked why did they shut down the subsidy program in the first place.

Its not entirely unfeasible to have a program like this but in much smaller bytes. A lot of the Scandinavian countries have been adopting this in smaller scales using the services of a company called Better Place run by Shai Agassi of ex SAP fame. They are setting up EV networks and infrastructures at smaller scales and encouraging use of the same along with subsidies provided to EVs like the Leaf for short distance commuting. They are doing it the right way. It doesn't need too much money invested upfront and that way they are minimizing future risks. Why can't they take 1/2 small test metros like Mumbai/Kolkata and start replacing the taxis with EVs. These taxis rarely run large distances and an EV network to support those EVs to be run as taxis will do a far lot for the environment than announcing such grand schemes. Hell they caused more global warming by making this unnecessary and stupid announcement. In our case, forget a subsidized EV, I don't think we will ever see an AA battery put up for use under this scheme because most of the funds if it materializes would be siphoned off .
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Old 1st September 2012, 20:05   #8
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Re: Govt to invest 14000 crore in electric vehicle infrastructure

Call me a skeptic, but I think all of this money will only be used to inflate the swiss accounts and procure illegal personal assets for the babus and netas. Nothing more can be expected.

And what about the method of producing electricity for running these 60-70 lakh vehicles? Funded from the coal scam?

And one more
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Old 1st September 2012, 23:53   #9
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Re: Govt to invest 14000 crore in electric vehicle infrastructure

1) We all know that making good quality Petrol and Diesel available to countrymen would help in reducing pollution. What steps has govt. taken ?

2) Planned Infrastructure development. We all know how much will it help economy and environment. Is this done ?

3) Overall as a nation, if we are more disciplined, India would be a better place to live. What we get is Coal Scam.

@mods : My personal view is to lock this topic or shift it to "Shifting Gears". GOI wont be doing anything good enough to warrant a healthy thread discussing car/s and related technology, news, improvements, etc. in Indian Car Scene section.
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Old 30th September 2012, 09:48   #10
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Govt to invest 14000 crore in electric vehicle infrastructure-hondahomeenergystationowninghomeenergystation.jpg

This is the dream home that honda envisages for the future. Solar energy from the roof top powers the house and used for electrolysis of water to generate hydrogen, which will be stored in the fuel cell car for transportation needs.
One can raise a lot many objections and problems in implementation of this dream, but as honda's tag line says 'The power of dreams' can make even the seemingly impossible come true.
I completely agree with the wheel to well emissions arguement and the coal based energy doing more damage than the conventional fuels, but think about this- we have been using internal combustion engines for close a 100 years now and everyone blames them for all the environmental problems we face today even more than all the other industries combined, but the same people who blame them cannot do without them and dont even try to give other technologies a chance.
A fact - General motors, which was one of the big three, failed miserably with the EV1 in the year 2000 and the Maini Reva was sold commercially in the year 2001. This is what Indian manufacturers are capable of, what we need is to give other technologies a chance. To quote an example, the discovery of electromagnetic effect was luaghed at and called an amusing trick, but the same trick is now electrifying our lives.
We have perfected the art of making automobiles through production lines and lean manufacturing, frugal engineering,etc. But it still takes almost an year to come up with a launch ready product from the drawing board for any major manufacturer in the world. The major time is taken to economically design and source the components and create a viable product that will sell.
If this is the case with established technology, imagine what it would take to make an electric vehicle when we do have enough nuclear and hydel power to completely shift from coal dependency.
I dont think we should worry too much about indirect greenhouse gas emissions from electric vehicles at this point of time but rather give the vehicles a chance to stand alongside the conventional cars.
There are so many other activities we do in our daily lives such as leaving the computer on standby and not switching off lights which create enough GHGs that we have to worry about.
Lets think constructively and do what each one of us can do in our own means, like the man in bangalore who made his home completely solar powered to fulfil his needs and sometimes even feeding the extra energy into the grid.
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Old 30th September 2012, 16:01   #11
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Re: Govt to invest 14000 crore in electric vehicle infrastructure

Quote:
Originally Posted by DReddy View Post
Attachment 993878

This is the dream home that honda envisages for the future. Solar energy from
Lets think constructively and do what each one of us can do in our own means, like the man in bangalore who made his home completely solar powered to fulfil his needs and sometimes even feeding the extra energy into the grid.
A completely off the grind solar powered dwelling? Can you please share any web links pointing to this?
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Old 30th September 2012, 16:18   #12
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Re: Govt to invest 14000 crore in electric vehicle infrastructure

In other news, Toyota drops plan for electric cars - http://blog.heritage.org/2012/09/26/...-electric-car/

Still other news, GM loses 50,000$ on each Volt it builds - http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/...88904J20120910

Still other news, Fisker Karma's 1,00,000$ plugin hybrid is riddled with problems - http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/0...8KP2GN20120925

I think the Indian Govt is inspired by the Environment related Scams of the Obama Govt (eg. http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics...yndra-scandal/) and trying to duplicate them here.

Quote:
Originally Posted by aaggoswami View Post
1) We all know that making good quality Petrol and Diesel available to countrymen would help in reducing pollution. What steps has govt. taken ?
What's the problem with the Petrol and Diesel sold here?

Last edited by carboy : 30th September 2012 at 16:21.
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Old 30th September 2012, 17:50   #13
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Quote:
Originally Posted by RS_DEL

A completely off the grind solar powered dwelling? Can you please share any web links pointing to this?
http://www.bangaloremirror.com/index...850191793b5cd0
The bangalore green home article.
This is a question to all the green energy supporters
- how many people in our country know about SUZLON and the story behind the promoter Tulsi Tanti moving from manufacturing of textiles into making wind turbines.
- how many people know that samsung launched an entry level phone with a solar panel called guru solar for rs 2000. I am using it since the past 3 years.
The point I want to make is, we can spend any amount of time and effort in looking at the negative aspects of anything, but if we make a sincere effort to try and find a solution to our problems there will always be a way out.
I people demand for green products, the manufacturers will sit up, take notice and make them for us.
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Old 30th September 2012, 18:19   #14
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Re: Govt to invest 14000 crore in electric vehicle infrastructure

Environment related scams served on the platter for the Indian politicians now. Electric cars are useless IMO. You need to charge up every 500 yards for a minimum of 4 hours, there is no decently possible range let alone performance. Yes, there is a lot of torque generated but to what extent, how usable is that. The electric car is just not ready yet. As long as they are going to use batteries to power cars its just not going to work, the Fisker Karma is still usuable in the real world but the Nissan Leaf, G-Wiz (Reva) & the Peugeot iOn from where I see it, just don't cut it.

If anything all that the Indian Government must first fund and improve the infrastructure, and if they really want to contribute to the future, fund research & development in the field of Hydrogen storage. Honda is there with the FCX Clarity, that is the car of the future.

As James May from Top Gear said, We have built our world around the cars as we know it. We drive, we run out of fuel, we fill it up and drive some more. We cannot have a car that runs for a little bit and then stay to charge it up for 6 hours.

.
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Old 30th September 2012, 18:59   #15
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How is the government planning to raise this amount?
From the tax payers budget?
Aren't there more pressing issues at hand?
We can debate all we want but we would never have a positive outcome out of it although may succeed in manufacturing the best electric vehicle there is on the planet.
Indian government is planning to implement a first world scheme with third world infrastructure!

A quote that I wanted to share:
'A developed country is not the one where the poor drive around in cars, but the one where the rich use public transport.'
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