[gb97ce6]

Let me be the devils advocate- sooner or later we will have the largest population in the world with a crumbling infrastructure. In tier 2 and 3 cities we are atleast 2 generations behind in roads, bridges, flyovers , parking , safety etc

Sure in an ideal world everyone will have a car , but unfortunately that is not the case here.

Making vehicles and fuel cheaper is probably the worst idea.

The government needs to look at proper town planning and get the infra ready for the vehicles that are already on the road.

[sri_tesla]

Originally Posted by AirbusCapt

I feel it's a premature decision by the government. EV is surely the future, but trying to force the progress IMO is futile. The current range of batteries, the state of recharging infrastructure, time taken per charge makes owning a EV, frankly pointless.

Forcing the progress or encouraging the progress? What's wrong with promoting EVs that are being manufactured in India? If not now, we have to create charging infrastructure later. Charging infrastructure may seem the biggest obstacle but its not some rocket science.

There are EVs that can go 600 KMs on single charge and fast charging that can charge at 300 KM+ in just 20 minutes.

Originally Posted by AirbusCapt

The ideal way to change track would be to encourage hybrids via lower tax, reduced insurance and registration costs and even reduced fuel price for a hybrid etc, and as the technology matured, change tack to push full blown electric vehicles.

Hybrid sales are already declining at a rapid pace across the world despite more no. of hybrid options available now with decent electric range. People are choosing all-electric vehicles over plug-in hybrids.

[AirbusCapt]

Is the above mentioned EV available for as cheap as a mid sized sedan in India? No point in pricing something close to an exotic and then pretending it is clean. Unless affordable and truly usable EV is available for purchase it's merely a case of pushing agenda to suit someone's needs

[GTO]

Originally Posted by AirbusCapt

I feel it's a premature decision by the government. EV is surely the future, but trying to force the progress IMO is futile. The current range of batteries, the state of recharging infrastructure, time taken per charge makes owning a EV, frankly pointless.

For all the talk of "promoting EVs" in the budget, they are still a pipe dream. If the government really wanted to promote green cars, they should have offered 5% GST on proper hybrid cars.

Hybrid cars are the today and can overnight DOUBLE the fuel efficiency, if not more. A regular Camry Petrol AT will give you 6 kmpl in the city. The Camry Hybrid delivers 14 - 15 kmpl . Now, imagine what hybrid tech can do to a mass market hatchback. 30 kmpl? I definitely think so.

Not saying that it should be hybrids vs EVs, but the fact is, hybrids are the today while EVs are a very distant tomorrow.

[SchumiFan]

Nobody is going to invest their hard earned money on the current crop of EVs available.

As GTO says, hybrids are the way to go. Should have aggressively promoted it for the likes of Toyota and Honda to bring their tech here which has already gone mainstream in other countries.

I don't want a diesel but I can't live with only a petrol. Hybrids are the solution to the problem and can cut fuel bills of the country without actually having to add anything to the current infrastructure.

The government's intentions were good. But we are a long way off from being able to achieve that. Some course correction is required immediately and OEMs need to be serious in the attempts as well. None of these micro or small hybrid Bull crap please.

[tarik.arora]

I completely agree with the comments above. Hybrids are the way to go, at least for the next 5-7 years and then we can think of graduating to pure EVs. The government here wants to leapfrog to EVs without investing in Hybrids (Just like BS-IV to VI). Right now we have almost zero pure EV products on offer and government is offering tax subvention. IMO, this is just an eyewash for the common man.

Those who understand the industry and know what the Western world is doing to support EVs, will know that the Government is not doing enough. We do not have local battery production so we will rely on imported (mostly Chinese) parts for our EVs and that is not a good thing. If the government thinks that we will suddenly have local production capabilities in the next 10 years, the estimation is highly optimistic.

[sri_tesla]

Originally Posted by GTO

If the government really wanted to promote green cars, they should have offered 5% GST on proper hybrid cars.

Not saying that it should be hybrids vs EVs, but the fact is, hybrids are the today while EVs are a very distant tomorrow.

If we follow the hybrid and EV market across the world, hybrids represent the past, not present and definitely not future. Here are the data from major markets like EU, China and US.

• Europe (Q1, 2019): BEV - Battery Electric Vehicle, PHEV (Plug-in Hybrid Vehicle).
  BEVs – 83,676 (up 87.5%) at 2% share
  PHEV – 43,209 (down 4.5%) at 1% share
  

• US (June 2019): 80% of US EV sales are all-electric with plug-in hybrids contributing just 20% of sales.
  

• China (May 2019): ~80% of EV sales are all-electric in China in the first 5 months of 2019. While all-electric sales are growing at rapid pace, plug-in hybrids are declining.
  
  BYD is the biggest EV company in China. In H1, 2019, BYD's BEV sales grew by whopping 301% while PHEV sales declined by 5%. At the same time, their ICE sales down by 45%.

GM stopped production of its most popular plug-in hybrid Volt. Honda Clarity, Toyota Prius Prime which are decent plug-in hybrids sells just ~1000 per month with declining sales each year.

[volkman10]

Originally Posted by sri_tesla

If we follow the hybrid and EV market across the world, hybrids represent the past, not present and definitely not future. Here are the data from major markets like EU, China and US.--

Did these markets go directly from ICE--->BEV ? Like to know if you have data of Hybrids in EU before the take-over of BEV's.

[atnyia]

Budget and the Indian government lacks a coherent policy on the EV and (phasing out) the ICE. Whatever they did for the EVs is not sufficient and whatever they did for ICE is BAD. We need a visionary like Saurav Ganguly to steer towards the post ICE generation. Instead, what we have got is Vijay Shankar of a policy which is neither here nor there.

I honestly don't understand what to make out of the budget. You can't tweak into the next generation, far superior world of EVs. The technology (read Chinese) will swamp us all this way down the line. Like the Bharatmala, GQ projects, we need a sustained and clear policy to make the transition smooth. It's completely lacking.

OT:
EV Cars transition is still far away. But, two wheeler EV is already on the inflection point. In next five years, two wheeler EV market will be properly established. None of us considers Electric car for now, but most of us consider electric two wheeler atleast (even when we don't buy). They just need to have enough range to last a week (250 KM). I held back buying Ather just so slightly during June. Instead I bought a second hand Activa for now, waiting for the tech & infra to be sufficiently evolved.

[sri_tesla]

Originally Posted by volkman10

Did these markets go directly from ICE--->BEV ? Like to know if you have data of Hybrids in EU before the take-over of BEV's.

Here is the data for EU from 2016:



Coming to other question of going directly from ICE to BEV, the answer is NO, because of limited availability of BEV models. Its starting change lately and resulting in BEVs dominating the EV market. This is being recognized by the automakers as well.

VW is going all in with BEVs ignoring plug-ins. They recently announced their cheapest car (VW UP)to go fully electric. UP sold as Citigo under Skoda brand and Mii under Seat brand. They are going to release all-electric variants for all 3 models this year. No plug-ins. Also, their ID series (MEB platform) is entirely all-electric series. No plug-ins. MEB platform is going to be used by their other brands like Skoda, Seat and even Audi. PSA group announced and started pre-orders for BEV models across its brands (Puegeot, Citreon, DS, Opel).

Also, do we need to go from ICE to Hybrids before going to BEVs if other markets does the same? That path sounds reasonable 4-5 years ago but not its not so much. Emerging countries can directly leapfrog to advanced technologies. It happened to in cell phone industry (no phone to cell phone bypassing land line by majority of people). Its happening in Energy sector (coal to solar/wind instead of Nuclear or gas).

[GeeTee TSI]

A real world scenario before a person in the market for a new vehicle (scooter). I took some family members to Ather showroom in Bangalore last Sunday and whilst the staff was waxing eloquent about their design and technology, 3 simple questions popped up from the prospective customer -

1. I have to pay close to double that of an equivalent conventional scooter (say, a TVS Jupiter 150) for similar performance.
2. The battery if replaced after the 3 year warranty due to unacceptable degradation, costs half the price of a conventional scooter
3. On top of that, I need to 'get used' to forever riding with less than 1L of fuel remaining

I think with the level that EVs are today with their limitation, there needs to be more than a GST cut to drive people to them

[sri_tesla]

Its official. GST on EVs reduced from 12% to 5%. GST on EV chargers also reduced from 18% to 5%. New rates will be effective from August 1st, 2019.

GST Council also approved exemption from GST on hiring of Electric Buses by local authorities.

Source:
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com...w/70407309.cms

[drive_factor]

From the grapevine .

1. Auto sector is expected to shed about 300,000 direct and indirect jobs in short term. Half of them by end August. Automotive clusters are already turning gloomy.

2. Expect more body blows in the days to come. The word is that one heavy weight minister is driving a personal agenda on the aggressive EV roll in.

Domestic industry is sincere in moving towards EV, but have lost the appetite or ability to commit investments. A great amount of distrust is building up against the government.

[truezealous]

GST council reduce gst to 5% on EV vehicles, to be applicable from August 1.
news source