[vivtho]

Originally Posted by Holyghost

That is how an electric motor works. Electric motors do not need to spin to create torque. As soon as you provide electricity, the motor produces torque.
To understand it better, try switching on your ceiling fan while you hold its leaf. The fan will not spin (0 rpm) since you have blocked it but you will feel the force (torque).

Edit: Not sure if the term torque is technically correct when there is no acceleration from the force. Moment could be a more appropriate technical term. Physics experts can comment on it.

The 100% torque available throughout the rev range is also the reason why EVs are not as affected by stop-start traffic compared to IC engines. Not that there is no efficiency loss, but it is much less when compared to a IC engine which has to build up the revs every time it starts off.

[srinih75]

A lot of posts talk about speed not being enough. In my long drives I have seen that average speed (end to end journey) hasn't crossed 65KMPH for me. I don't drive very fast sticking to around 100-110 range where possible. In my car including city and long drives after covering about 26000 kms I see the reading is avg speed is 47KMPH. Among the auto makers we have in India only M&M has considered releasing a production EV. This is the 2nd in their stable. It is a commendable achievement on their end. Whether we buy or they make profit or it bites the dust, why are we arguing it here?

From a constructive criticism point of view here are things they could have considered doing to promote EVs which are mainly into extending its range:

1. Some sort of solar canopy which they can sell as add-on which users can erect in few small folds and it to keep the car under shade and also do the charging business.
2. Longer range battery so that pit stops are after 200-250 KMs and then as in #1 park the car under a shade for the chai/pani stops
3. I haven't see the e-Verito myself so if its using the old ICE body, replace it with fibre glass or anything lighter to reduce weight hence extend the range
4. Lobby the Govt to come out of diesel subsidy to EV subsidy. This is good for the planet and everyone living in it.

[sreeharipv]

Kudos to Mahindra!

Finally someone came up with a full (indian) size electric car. For the record, I've test driven a lot of Teslas (all the way with Ludicrous Mode et al) and have constantly looked down up on other worldly car companies for not coming up with anything in the same ball park. But boy, this is huge. This has all the potential to be block buster if they can just make it work for the Uber-Ola community. For New Delhi for now, just sprinkle the place with fast chargers and see the adoption. 300-500 in fuel savings a day is gonna go a long way for a lot of cabbies.

[Vigkey]

Am I the only one who believe that EVs are doing no good to our environment? I have stated this a couple of times in other threads, EVs are NOT the greener alternative - in fact they are more polluting than normal cars having IC engines. The only relief (??) is EVs just make sure the pollution happens elsewhere.

Yes, instead of polluting the congested city we live in, the pollution is shifted to a sparsely populated town where the highly inefficient thermal power station runs to produce power. Thermal power stations account for over 70% of power produced (at least in India). Most of them use outdated, highly inefficient technology to produce power - the efficiency much lower than our car IC engines and the pollution, MUCH higher.

It helps us, but does it help overall? NO. IMHO, It will be selfish to think that EVs reduce pollution, as it pollutes indirectly and just that we might not be directly affected by it. But, end of the day, it results in more carbon and more toxic gases released to the environment.

I, personally, would any day go for (a recommend) a car with a modern IC engine which passed the latest pollution certification than an EV - however modern it is.

[RM Motorsports]

Has anyone come across pictures of E-Verito's interiors ?

I just found one picture.

[VeluM]

Originally Posted by Vigkey

Am I the only one who believe that EVs are doing no good to our environment?

No, there are polarised opinions but no one can say that continuing to drive a petrol/diesel car is better. Fossil fuels are a finite and extremely polluting resource, and are best left for use where there can be no alternative.

Also, EVs are not "doing no good" to our environment, it is the power stations that are emitting the pollution. With India committed to generating a massive amount of electricity from renewable sources (water, wind and solar) by 2020, this argument would also become fairly redundant because all the studies that say that they cause more pollution do also state that this is only where the electricity source itself is fossil fuels.

The main problem with IC engines is that they continue to run and burn fuel in stop-start traffic. This is where the EVs and hybrids shine. Just see the number of comments against Mahindra's own stop-start tech and one would understand that a higher capacity electric battery that can take care of the AC and electrics and drive in stop-start traffic will make a huge impact. Most cars today spend the majority of their time idling or crawling in city traffic.

So what do we do in the mean time. I'm of the opinion that plug in hybrids that have a 50 - 60km range on pure-electric mode are the best alternative for the next 20 years, though the future beyond that is certainly all-electric.

For all the Hydrogen fuel-cell advocates, Hydrogen is a rare and very light gas. The cost of splitting enough water to generate Hydrogen, then compress it, store it and distribute it is so high that this is never going to be feasible. It may be the best solution, but it is not the most practical.

As far as battery life is concerned, the current life of batteries in Teslas has been proven to last at least 5 years with 90% capacity at the end of that period. There have also just this and last year been discoveries that allow batteries to be charged within minutes (capacitive batteries) and ones that have charge/discharge cycles of more than a million with little degradation that should sustain development of existing NiCd and Li-ion batteries.

Originally Posted by sreeharipv

Kudos to Mahindra!

Kudos certainly, however the Verito Electric is not very practical because its range isn't sufficient for it to be the only car one owns, while its size is impractical for use as a city car.

[Holyghost]

Originally Posted by Vigkey

Am I the only one who believe that EVs are doing no good to our environment? I have stated this a couple of times in other threads, EVs are NOT the greener alternative - in fact they are more polluting than normal cars having IC engines.

This is an inaccurate statement. When we are talking about IC engines, the pollution is happening at every stage. Drilling, Refining, transporting are all sources of pollution as well as uses huge amount of power. And finally we burn that fuel causing even more pollution.
For an EV, the pollution is happening at the site of power production.

There are lot of studies conducted by both the pro EV groups and the pro-fuel groups. Don't just google for what you want to hear, read the other side too. I have seen that the most studies by the pro fuel groups conveniently hides a lot facts to make the IC engines look greener. They claim the battery manufacturing/recycling is more polluting while conveniently hiding the facts about IC engine recycling and engine oil recycling. There will be no mention about the reduced no of parts in an EV and the associated reduction in recycling costs, the sound pollution etc.

And our Govt is trying to move towads green power and renewable sources. The solar power is gaining a lot of momentum. I myself has installed a 3KW roof top solar grid-tie system in my house.

[Nav-i-gator]

Imagine If all vehicles in India are only EV, with good support infrastructure to support charging on the go. It would need, maybe a thousand big power units across India to generate electricity. Much lower than the millions of fuel burning individual vehicles.

Besides, power units can use LNG, solar, hydroelectric, wind, or other renewable resources to generate electricity.

Overall, with all individual passenger vehicles converting to electric, there will be substantial reduction in pollution.

[vinit.merchant]

Originally Posted by srinih75

From a constructive criticism point of view here are things they could have considered doing to promote EVs which are mainly into extending its range:

4. Lobby the Govt to come out of diesel subsidy to EV subsidy. This is good for the planet and everyone living in it.

There is a reason for subsidy on Diesel. It helps keep the prices of basic commodities cheap, and thereby the inflation in check. EV's cannot provide this benefit. Moreover, there is already a subsidy on EV's by way of lower taxes etc.

Originally Posted by VeluM

No, there are polarised opinions but no one can say that continuing to drive a petrol/diesel car is better. Fossil fuels are a finite and extremely polluting resource, and are best left for use where there can be no alternative.

Also, EVs are not "doing no good" to our environment, it is the power stations that are emitting the pollution.

As far as battery life is concerned, the current life of batteries in Teslas has been proven to last at least 5 years with 90% capacity at the end of that period. There have also just this and last year been discoveries that allow batteries to be charged within minutes (capacitive batteries) and ones that have charge/discharge cycles of more than a million with little degradation that should sustain development of existing NiCd and Li-ion batteries.

Originally Posted by Nav-i-gator

Imagine If all vehicles in India are only EV, with good support infrastructure to support charging on the go.

Overall, with all individual passenger vehicles converting to electric, there will be substantial reduction in pollution.

Nothing is man made. The Lithium is a natural resource and I guess in shorter supply than fossil fuels. If millions of vehicles start running on batteries, then we will have a problem of supply on that front, for sure.

Tesla's may have longer range and a very competent battery packs with quick charge etc, but the price at which they come in, it hardly has a chance in the market which is currently dominated by Middle class population.

Moreover, the cars may be running clean as far a pollution is concerned, but when the time to replace the batteries come up, the old batteries need to be disposed off very carefully, as they are very very harmful to the environment.
I understand that lithium can be recycled but a little bit of googling informed me that recycled Litium costs as much as 5 times the cost of producing it, so most tend to avoid the recycling part, a practice we would see more often in India.

[Nav-i-gator]

Originally Posted by vinit.merchant

Nothing is man made. The Lithium is a natural resource and I guess in shorter supply than fossil fuels. If millions of vehicles start running on batteries, then we will have a problem of supply on that front, for sure.


Moreover, the cars may be running clean as far a pollution is concerned, but when the time to replace the batteries come up, the old batteries need to be disposed off very carefully, as they are very very harmful to the environment.
I understand that lithium can be recycled but a little bit of googling informed me that recycled Litium costs as much as 5 times the cost of producing it, so most tend to avoid the recycling part, a practice we would see more often in India.

I understand, and in parts, agree to your opinion. However, the cost associated with recycling will come down as scale increases. And scale will increase with sale (read:Use). The very fact that Li is recyclable makes it better than Fossil fuels, isn't it? (and we now at-least have such kind of discussions/debates. While fossil fuel burning engines were starting to be used in vehicles, we never had such debates - as in how much detrimental to environment were the IC engines. Now we know that).

Plus, with drastically reduced usage of fossil fuel based engines, and increased usage of electric vehicles, there will be more research, more would be tech adoption at industrial scale and there would be better technologies (like ever so promising fuel cell) coming in.

In financial/economic/industrial cycles, adoption rate determines the improvement rate.

[vinit.merchant]

Originally Posted by Nav-i-gator

In financial/economic/industrial cycles, adoption rate determines the improvement rate.

Whatever we humans do, we always end up exploiting the natural resources and damaging the environment.

First we cut down trees for wood to build houses, screwed up the ecology, then we realized it is harmful, so concrete was invented. For concrete we started taking down mountains, and we still take them down. This again affected the ecology.

We are riding the same cycle right now as far as fuel is concerned.

[Nav-i-gator]

Originally Posted by vinit.merchant

Whatever we humans do, we always end up exploiting the natural resources and damaging the environment.

First we cut down trees for wood to build houses, screwed up the ecology, then we realized it is harmful, so concrete was invented. For concrete we started taking down mountains, and we still take them down. This again affected the ecology.

We are riding the same cycle right now as far as fuel is concerned.

This is going way off the topic. But still.

Every species try to maximize their chances of survival, and so does humans. And if a species succeeds in doing that, it invariably disturbs the ecological balance. (just like a swarm of grasshoppers seriously damages the natural ecosystem of places they descend upon).

And unlike other species where individual living beings fend for themselves, humans have "so far" succeeded in improving the chances of their entire species, and hence the negative impact on nature is even bigger.

However, that's not the topic of discussion. On the topic, I firmly believe fossil fuels burning IC engines are not a long term solution to our needs, and hence to be phased out sooner or later. Plus, they are decidedly more polluting than EVs (and even if they are equally polluting, at least the pollution is more manageable in terms of its geographical spread. ).

[Screwdriva]

I'm actually quite optimistic about the e-Verito, especially for the commercial sector.

Most people won't need more than 100 kms of range a day and given that drivers can no longer steal fuel from the tank or have to wait in long CNG queues, this may just be a surprise hit. I can see many Mumbai cab drivers loving this

[sreeharipv]

I for one follow EVs and renewable energy quite thoroughly. The argument that EVs are only just moving the pollution to elsewhere is not true.

• IC engines at peak are only about 30-35% efficient, but the problem is they seldom run at peak. So, you are probably getting 10-15% efficiency in real life due to all the idling and driving at crawling speeds. On the contrary thermal plants typically run at 50-60% efficiency. The load requirement on them doesn't change every millisecond like on an IC engine on a car stuck in the traffic. Also, they can bring more generators online/offline to maintain the efficiency. This is notwithstanding the fact that its not easy for thermal plants to adapt to load quickly. The well to wheel CO2 emissions per mile driven in an EV is better than that of a comparable ICE vehicle even if all the electricity was produced by burning coal. This is not the case even now and is fast changing for good.

• Being a few inches away from tail pipe and kms away from a smoke stack makes a world of difference in the toxic gas concentration in the air that you breathe.

• The blank statement that eVerito's aren't practical isn't true either. They may not be practical as a primary house hold car, but they might be really very practical as a taxi. For the price stated, I think they pay for themselves considering the fuel savings. If they can come out with a second generation in a year with 130-150 kms range, that could become a no-brainer once taxi operators know what the current one can do.

[abhishek46]

Originally Posted by srinih75

A lot of posts talk about speed not being enough. In my long drives I have seen that average speed (end to end journey) hasn't crossed 65KMPH for me. I don't drive very fast sticking to around 100-110 range where possible. In my car including city and long drives after covering about 26000 kms I see the reading is avg speed is 47KMPH. Among the auto makers we have in India only M&M has considered releasing a production EV. This is the 2nd in their stable. It is a commendable achievement on their end. Whether we buy or they make profit or it bites the dust, why are we arguing it here?

You have listed some very good constructive points here.

Just one observation though, the average of 65KMPH on long drives is possible because of the long cruises of 100KMPH.
If the cruising speed is reduced from 100 to 80, the average speed will reduce also (by around 10-15KMPH).

Secondly, we are able to cruise happily at 100-110 because our cars have top speed of 140KMPH Plus. So, we are operating the engine at it's 70% power level with 30% as reserve power. That is why cruising at 100kmph feels calm in our cars.

For the e-Verito, If you leave a buffer of 30%, the 70% of 85KMPH is hardly 60KMPH. Even auto guys will pass it.
You can of course, chose to drive at max power i.e. 85KMPH. But we dont know how detrimental it will be to the components and the range.

I sincerely thought that the Verito could use atleast a 100-110KMPH top speed and a better range (200 odd kms).
Without these two things, it is strictly a city car in my opinion.