[dutta_d1]

IMHO, this is too far fetched and over ambitious goal, although a step in the right direction.

To keep the entire plan from falling on its head, what we really need is a systematic policy that will long term help India to at least get started on the EV route.

By 2030, if we can have at least a countable number of practical EVs on our showrooms, that would be a huge success. 100% is really an impractical target.

Where EVs can shine is to provide a second car for running odd errands around the city and not as the primary car of the home, on which we do long drives. The starting point of all this is, of course, by reducing or even abolishing taxes on EVs.

[gsurya]

If the Govt can get Chevrolet to build the Volt hybrid in India, give them import duty & tax exemption & get us this amazing hybrid around 10 Lakhs mark, I will give them full marks for making a start.

This sort of a bold move will help hybrids really take off in India, which will be a stepping stone to future 100% EVs.

http://www.caranddriver.com/features...o-know-feature

Right now, if I am not mistaken, the only hybrid in India is the Toyota Prius Hybrid priced at 40 lakhs!

[satz581993Mille]

To simply put, this is just extremely over ambitious. And even if we do end up having many EV options in India, the price and performance for that price will be a major factor for people who would buy. Frankly, the electric cars which give very good performance are always on the higher side and people on the look out for a car aren't going to spend close to even 7 to 8 lacs for a car which would have performance figures lesser than that of say a Maruti Swift.

Also, like others have said, even taking the percent of EV in India to upto at least 10% would require large investments to set up multiple charging stations across every city. This seems to be a tough ask provided the current track record in terms of power and fossil fuels for our country. At best, we would end up having multiple technologies like SHVS from Maruti being built up by other companies in a more electric oriented way in the future which would give much higher mileage which would fetch the companies increased sales which inturn is a good thing to an extent. But 100% EV nation by 2030? One can only wish!

[Durango Dude]

I think, in India, best would be to also develop a 'Power Bank' for the car battery, just like the power hungry phones. Xiaomi/mi.com/in are you listening!

[mvadg]

Originally Posted by bhandary

Probably one way I can imagine is to make it mandatory to have solar panels on every house that owns an automobile for exclusively charging the vehicle, just like the rule of rain water harvesting unit for every home for replenishing the ground water level.

You would not go very far with that solar energy. I'll let you work that out!

[wrongturn]

Think about 2001. How many cars were there and what kind of technology was used in automobile industry?Now let's go back even further to 1985. Think about and picture the automobile industry back then.
Come right back to 2016, most of you would be reading this post on your smartphone. Leave that, even the automobile industry has evolved many folds in past 15 years. I am pretty sure we will witness many revolutionary changes in the automobile industry in next decade, and in fifteen years from now, keeping in mind the rapid development in the field of fuel cell vehicles and solor cell technology with the ever getting better and longer lasting batteries along with cars like Tesla Model S setting examples for cars of the future, I am very much excited to think about what we may witness in next fifteen years. And we never know who can discover the next big thing in his garage, he could be a team-bhpian, so let's just be optimistic it is very much possible.
Let's just hope it works out and the governments & politicians around the world would support the development technology that would not be as polluting as petroleum. Hope they would understand that for all that wealth they have accumulated, they need a planet where they can spend it, and there is only one planet in this universe where they can use all their $$$.

[rav11stars]

Let's not get all pessimistic about it. It's a proposal to work out the ifs, buts and cans. 2030 or 2070 or a later date, the shift is inevitable. India leading it or others building them in India, we're going to buy them and use them.

If I'm not wrong, some countries are already on this path. So it wouldn't hurt to learn from them (or rather their mistakes). We do not have a dearth of talent (remember that Professor from Mysore who made roads with plastic waste).

If a well-detailed study is made which considers the depth and breadth of our country, this is not impossible. Luckily we receive a good amount of sunshine and with the rate at which we're polluting there will only be more sunshine. So putting more focus on solar farms and the like can probably lead to a surplus of electricity. All we need are innovative thoughts.

How are they going to make us take them?
If they can ask us to do a "Give it up" on the LPG subsidy and when there's little response, brought a rule revoking LPG subsidy for a certain income group, they can surely force something like this on us.
Whenever I saw that ad I felt like asking "why don't you give it up" and people will follow suit.

Once these EVs hit the roads:

• People might get fined for not honking at pedestrians.
• Online marketplaces will be flooded with devices that mimic a car's sound. Enthusiasts will go one step ahead and make DIYs so the sound actually reflects the changing of gears as the EV picks up speed
• Doctors will prescribe recordings of car sounds to sleep-deprived people living near highways and busy roads.
• Cars which people now refer to as tinny will be the rage for their low weight. They'll be lauded for being futuristic.
• Power banks that promise to charge the car's battery x times faster will emerge. The missus will have to let go of that extra bag to accommodate the car's power bank.
• Cars will be hacked; It's OS rooted. people will have fun changing tracks on the car they're following and more.
• In place of the regular tbhp stickers we'll have "Live to e-drive", "Lov-e cars, Liv-e Cars".

Here's me wishing good luck to the initiative.

[anand.shankar]

Lot of skepticism seen around this topic, though it sounds a bit far fetched I feel thats the only way to go.

But I surely will be interested to know how the Govt plans to get there. I guess pushing auto makers to bring out better hybrids will help as a first step. We hardly have any decent hybrids available, except a couple.

For people who think such a big change isn't possible, just look back 10 years, GPRS on your mobile, anything more than a VGA camera & 64MB memory card was luxury and was priced over 10-15K. So what drove the change ? Market need and early adoption. Its not the same deal, i agree, but hopefully we will see some drastic changes in the next decade.

[dutta_d1]

Originally Posted by gsurya

If the Govt can get Chevrolet to build the Volt hybrid in India, give them import duty & tax exemption & get us this amazing hybrid around 10 Lakhs mark, I will give them full marks for making a start.

This sort of a bold move will help hybrids really take off in India, which will be a stepping stone to future 100% EVs.

http://www.caranddriver.com/features...o-know-feature

Right now, if I am not mistaken, the only hybrid in India is the Toyota Prius Hybrid priced at 40 lakhs!

It will still sell if they price it at anything less than 20L. A hybrid vehicle with an optional charging requirement and unlimited range (using fuel) is surely what the Indian driving condition demands.

On the other hand, so called "hybrid" technologies currently existing in India (SHVS, Micro-Hybrid) are laughable.

[MaheshY1]

ET has twisted what the Minister said. Goyal said that a team is carrying out feasibility to go all-electric by 2030. Here's the link to CII's press release.

Excerpt from the press release

Mr. Goyal further mentioned that a small working group under the leadership of Nitin Gadkari has been created. “The working group is evaluating the possibility of India making the transition to 100 per cent electric vehicles by 2030. This programme is going to be on a self-financing model and will look at monetizing savings that consumers have on petroleum products.

[King_pin09]

I am not very optimistic about this move.

If this move is due to environmental concerns then the differential impact has to be assessed i.e., impact caused by vehicles due to consumption of fossil fuels vis-à-vis the impact caused due to increased combustion of lignite, coal, coke, uranium, etc in generating additional electricity. Handling and disposal of by-products such as fly ash, etc., is another issue. I bet both stand on equal grounds.

Possibly, solar driven vehicles and/or vehicles with self charging batteries are the way to go.

[amitg79]

The government is thinking in the right direction. Now they need to start taking steps towards making EVs more feasible for the manufacturers and consumers. Even if we reach a 10 - 15% EV population out of all the vehicles by 2030, it would make a massive difference.

Of course, more manufacturers have to start offering good, practical EVs (or electric versions of their regular cars) that people would want to buy.

On that note, I like the upcoming Chevrolet Bolt quite a lot. (http://www.chevrolet.com/bolt-ev-electric-vehicle.html#)

[devrajman]

I know goal is far from real, but I had this idea when original REVA was introduced (mostly a decade ago).

I told them at their showroom, To solve range problem, Why dont you have stations at multiple places where under AMC I can replace my drained battery with fully charged one under 5mins (plugNplay) with little fee. I can keep doing that everytime the battery gets low

These station charges these batteries using environment friendly ways

There needs to be a battery standard where any make/model battery can be replaced at same station. There may be different capacity based on car size

With above thought suddenly electric vehicles become very viable.

[Lobogris]

Originally Posted by devrajman

I know goal is far from real, but I had this idea when original REVA was introduced (mostly a decade ago).

I told them at their showroom, To solve range problem, Why dont you have stations at multiple places where under AMC I can replace my drained battery with fully charged one under 5mins (plugNplay) with little fee. I can keep doing that everytime the battery gets low

These station charges these batteries using environment friendly ways

There needs to be a battery standard where any make/model battery can be replaced at same station. There may be different capacity based on car size

With above thought suddenly electric vehicles become very viable.

It is a good idea in principle. However, electric batteries are large and come in various sizes depending on vehicle size, cost and capacity. Secondly, the battery is relatively expensive and valauble. People who care for their vehicles take care of the battery pack as well. If I have a nearly new battery and the expected battery life is 10 years, I wouldn't want to change it with another one which might be say 8 years old and would provide inferior performance and lesser range. A somewhat correct analogy would be swapping an engine every so often. Even if you got the same type of engine, would you be happy changing your lovingly cared for and well maintained engine for an unknown one?

When I had my Toyota Prius, even after 8 years and nearly 200,000 kms, the battery gave smilar performance to a new one with no apparent loss of power. I wouldn't have wanted to change it to a random one. Having said that, advanced electric vehicles do have the technology built in to prevent excessive wear and tear of the battery pack but it still doesn't feel right to swap it with an unknown one. A more viable alternative is providing charging stations at work, malls, restaurants, rest areas etc.

[harishpr]

High hopes. It's like bangalore BBMP Announcing Signal free corridors, Elevated expressways, walkways and what not. Current government proposes, next government disposes! 100% evehicles is extremely ambitious, while the current Infrastructure is a joke. Desperate situations needs desperate measures, while the situation is desperate, measures are only lip service. Is there a concrete plan (even roads aren't concrete made yet) to support this ambitious theory?