[Safari Persona]

Originally Posted by shyampsunder

Fact: Even if the entire grid was coal-based, EVs are greener.

Fact: lifetime emissions are what we need to compare the two technologies and it has been proven beyond doubt that EVs are greener.

All of this is pretty easy to find online, suggest members to do some basic reading and keep the bar on discussions on teambhp high.

I've read the study you've referenced and the reality is a lot more nuanced than you're letting on. Assuming the power scenario that you yourself have laid out (100% coal-based), the break-even points are high enough that a gasoline vehicle could very well end up being less polluting than an EV vehicle in certain circumstances.


For a 100% coal-based power grid

Tesla Model 3 (EV) vs Toyota Corolla (gasoline)
Break-even point: 126,000 KMs

Tesla Model Y (EV) vs Honda CR-V (gasoline)
Break-even point: 143,000 KMs

If the power grid is 100% coal based, an EV would have to be driven for well over 1 lakh kilometers before they result in less lifetime emissions than an equivalent gasoline vehicle. A lot of cars don't make it past the 1 lakh kilometer mark for various reasons, so it's not always the case that EVs are less polluting than gasoline vehicles. If you need to replace the battery sooner than that, that's a different calculation altogether and it will look much worse for the EV car. Even if you do manage to make it to something like 2 lakh kilometers without replacing the battery, the difference in emissions is not night and day as we've been led to believe. In fact, in most practical use cases, the difference is relatively marginal.

The power grid will absolutely have to be transitioned to renewable energy sources for EVs to be significantly less polluting than gasoline cars. Right now, the way things are with India, I'm not sure EVs are as green as they're purported to be.

[Altocumulus]

Originally Posted by shyampsunder

Typical EV myths that have been debunked time and again but here we are again.

Myth 1: EVs pollute more than ICE vehicles since power grid is not fully renewable. Fact: Even if the entire grid was coal-based, EVs are greener. Source 1, Source 2, Source 3

The reason for this is what you learned back in school: The ICE engine efficiency is very low despite a century of tech advances. Power plants are a lot more efficient and their emissions are more controlled and regulated.

Anyway, the discussion on the grid is a moot point because India is leading the world in rapidly adopting clean energy. Source

The articles you presented clearly says it will not work for countries with high dependency on coal like Poland. India being the 3rd largest in the world for production of electricity still generates 3/4th of its energy from coal. And the last article for India transition is one written by NITI Aayog. I personally would not not base my judgement on it. However even if I do go by it, the target is 2070 (I doubt I will be alive then) and half of it by 2030. So we will still be heavily reliant on coal for the next 20 years atleast. So do I base the future of India's EV future on articles about other countries ?

Secondly all the articles you posted in the first section have different numbers in favor of EV. One says 40, the other says 60 and one more at 70% less. Whom to believe ? Why the differences ? How come different researches of the same thing yielding different numbers ?

Originally Posted by shyampsunder

Myth 2: Since battery manufacturing emits more energy, EVs pollute more. Fact: lifetime emissions are what we need to compare the two technologies and it has been proven beyond doubt that EVs are greener. Source

Did you know that roughly 25% of the emissions due to ICE happen in simply extracting, refining, and transporting the fuels?

As for the grid, electricity generation has been growing by 10% every year in India. By 2030, the estimate is for 5% of the grid being used for EVs. Pretty trivial compared to how much our grid has been growing every year. Source

Apart from all this, India has plenty of other benefits: Reduction in lung cancer due to PM2.5 particles, reduced forex outgo helping our trade deficit, lower noise pollution etc.

Well here is a source which says Electric cars will be highest consumers of electricity in India if we go 100% EV. Also the numbers don't seem as low as 5%. Now again whom to believe, your article or the below one ? https://yourstory.com/2023/04/electr...und%2037%20TW.

Like I mentioned earlier, a modern city like Noida and Greater Noida cant supply enough power. Every apartment has power backup and people pay around Rs 25 per unit for the DG backup. I stay in Noida and experience it every single year. So please don't blame me for not believing in the proper distribution of power. They cant even supply current consumption.

When it comes to PM2.5 particles, DPF traps 95-99% of it.

Originally Posted by shyampsunder

All of this is pretty easy to find online, suggest members to do some basic reading and keep the bar on discussions on Teambhp high.

Well when I was in school, I don't think there were any production electric cars in India. Only the toy battery ones I used to drive around as a kid. So most of things I said was from the internet, all of them were quoting some research. Similarly, there are some rebutting them like the ones you posted. Government sites of any country will be supporting their policies, I personally generally tend to avoid. They will always show the 'Good Days'. Like at the moment AQI in Delhi shows Moderate and in October November it will shoot upto worse than Severe. Its not, am sure, that everyone in Delhi NCR decides to take the car out only during those months and the rest of the year its kept in the garage. We all know the reasons, but its cars which are affected and blamed. IIT has also confirmed that it is majorly due to vehicles IIRC. That's the reality, which brings to my next point.

Internet articles, myths or myth busters, cannot be a blanket application. If something is relevant for one country that doesn't mean it has to for India. We sometimes need to use common sense and also think about feasibility and impact, not just think zero emission from the tailpipe. Also these articles are based on ideal scenarios not real world implications. What Norway could do with a population of 55 Lakhs wont be as easy and simple as implementing in India with a population of 140Cr. The number of vehicles in India is 6 times the total population of Norway. Still Norway is not 100% EV. They could afford that exemption of road tax and toll payments etc to promote EV. Can India afford that when everyone starts to move to EV?

This debate can go on about who is wrong or right. I personally feel, for India, first all BS4 and below vehicles should be banned from big cities by the government. See the impact of that first. They are still the majority by many times compared to BS6. Then implement to smaller cities. Parallelly have the guts to address the other major sources of pollution and keep promoting EV and building the infrastructure for it. Future is EV no doubt, but be realistic in the implementation.

There will always be early adopters as yourself who will have a one car EV garage. Maybe your requirements fulfil it. But again thinking that to work for every one is not realistic. I just drove down from Noida to Kolkata in 21 hours. Will be going to Bangalore from here over 2 or 3 days and then back to Noida from there. If it was an EV, 2200 kms on speeds over 100 with minimal regen due ti less braking, how much time do you think it will take ? A friend mentioned a Nexon was losing 1% charge every 750m on the highway. I hope it's an issue with the particular car, but the number sure are scary on a long drive.

[PreludeSH]

Originally Posted by humyum

I got my Diesel Innova in 2022 October, I paid road tax for 15 years. I live in Mumbai which easily has a population of million plus.

Why was I sold the car in the first place and that too which costed so much if I was not going to be allowed to use or keep it in the city that I live in?

If they want to implement it, why not stop every diesel car to be registered and sold in cities with million plus population and then say from today in 15 years this scheme will be implemented?

Looks like Hitler Raj with arbitrary though process morons ruling the roost.

Agree whole heartedly. I was thinking about same. Ask car makers to stop selling/manufacturing them 15 years before you want to ban them. Its time we had one policy for the entire country. Even having a diesel in another city where its allowed and not able to just go across a city that has it banned is not realistic.

If the govt wants to do something, convert all public transport to EVs within 2 years. That should be doable since the numbers are not that huge and they also run lakhs of kilometres very early. Trains should also not be problem. Autos can be retrofitted with subsidy.

[lejhoom]

Do trucks come under 4-wheeler category? Ban them and Indian economy is doomed.

[Bibendum90949]

I've one recommendation. Each of those panelists should consume this, twice daily .

[MT_Hyderabad]

I am totally against blanket BANs. They achieve little and give away a lot.

I would rather request govt to perform pollution check more stringently and efficiently and take away vehicles off the road based on pollution levels.

And these tests should be randomly done through hand held gauges like breath analyser tests. You stop your polluting car at a signal. Policeman tests and flags your car off the road. If you want to save yourself, you invest in a catalytic converter. How many of us have changed the catalytic converter for reducing pollution!? We only change them when they start leaking or for auditory pleasure.

Blanket BANs help no one. My 1 lakh driven, 15 year old Diesel car is less polluting than a 5 year old Diesel Auto.

[ferrarirules]

Originally Posted by PreludeSH

Agree whole heartedly. I was thinking about same. Ask car makers to stop selling/manufacturing them 15 years before you want to ban them. Its time we had one policy for the entire country. Even having a diesel in another city where its allowed and not able to just go across a city that has it banned is not realistic.

Where in the report or the article have they written that they are banning all diesel vehicles by 2027. It could be so that they are banning the new diesel vehicle sale from 2027 and for existing ones it will be something similar to Delhi-NCR that you cannot own a diesel vehicle beyond 10 yrs.

Also, pvt 4w diesel vehicles are already a dying breed only a few manufacturers have invested into it - Tata, Mahindra and Hyundai. Toyota is persisting with it only for Fortuner and Innova that also may change once their hybrid numbers pick up.

And all those who think that diesel cars have same emission standards as petrol cars under BS6 it is not so. Please see the table below



Source - wiki

BS6 diesel have reached BS4 petrol emission standards. And they additionally emit hydrocarbon + NOx which is not present in a petrol engine.

Finally for all those who thinks India doesn't have enough lithium This is news from today, there was a reserve found in Rajasthan - News Article

[PreludeSH]

Originally Posted by ferrarirules

It could be so that they are banning the new diesel vehicle sale from 2027 and for existing ones it will be something similar to Delhi-NCR that you cannot own a diesel vehicle beyond 10 yrs.

It could be or is it ? 10 years is different from saying a specific date of 2027 !

No one believes diesels are cleaner than petrol. I am all for hybrids to improve low end of petrol until we can move to EVs. I find the quick revving petrols very satisfying and refined.

[motorworks]

As is the case with many of these committee led reports, the recommendations are not solution oriented.

First, there is no alternative for diesel when it comes to commercial transportation. Period. There is not even something in sight. Agree, we are seeing Electric buses etc in some metropolitan cities, but this is too minuscule at this point of time.
So there is no way any such ban of diesel commercial vehicles is going to happen in the next 10-15 year horizon.

Second, Passenger diesel cars, this market is already dead, almost no diesel cars under 10 lakhs now, and I suspect even cars like Nexon, Venue,
Sonet are going to have only Petrol variants very soon. So it’s just the XUV700s, Scorpions, Safaris and Fortuners on diesel. Even luxury manufacturers are slowly getting out of diesel, so except Hyundai, Kia, Mahindra and Tata, no one else is going to be manufacturing diesel cars at all. And even with these manufacturers, diesel would be restricted only to heavy SUVs, where petrol doesn’t make sense, at least not with the current powertrains. Hence this segment of diesel passenger cars is already a declining segment and I see it being quite niche in the next 5 years. I wouldn’t be surprised if say a car like Tuscon moved away from diesel, or for that matter or fact if the Fortuner became a petrol Hybrid ( maybe next gen ), since Hyundai and Toyota can afford to do that. Maybe it would be just Mahindra and Tata who are overtly dependent on their diesels would be the last to make the move ( mahindra may have to find a more efficient petrol engine). So this segment poses no long term threat.

The government should focus on long term energy creation and sustainable solutions, like many of you mentioned, electric vehicles are not the solution, it may just seem fancy and novel now. But if you dig deep in to battery manufacturing and also the eventual e-waste generation, its another mammoth problem by itself.

[Jangra]

Government should realise that there are other ways to ALSO reduce emission like - make proper roads. A commute of 20 kms taking 2 hours due to road conditions in metropolitan cities.
In Bombay for example - we hardly have any roads to drive with all the never ending Metro construction work. Yes, Metro is necessary, but to complete construction within the timeline is equally imperative.
Government is smart to delegate their responsibilities and make citizens own the cost of implementing such “so called initiatives”

[tarmacnaut]

Originally Posted by epiccross

This is a tall claim. A lot of working class folks who on heavy vehicles can only feasibly operate with diesels. Hence the subsidy. I don't think it's one stop solution, but to claim that somehow it just benefits fat businessman is utterly wrong.

The working class folks owning diesel vehicles like trucks/cars? In what world?

These "working class" you refer to are actually drivers, driving their owner's cars/trucks on minimum wages. Except for a negligible few, who actually own a pickup/diesel auto and being still poor, Those are exceptions.

[Hayek]

Have not read the report but suspect that the headlines are classic click bait. And yes, I am falling for that trap by posting here.

Banning new diesel cars, city buses, distribution trucks (say less than 5 tonne GVW) and of course those abominations called auto rickshaws makes immense sense. They pollute and can be replaced by Petrols, Hybrids or EVs almost immediately. But you need to give some time before a ban to let folks adapt - and I think at least 5 years (which was the notice for previous emissions changes) is the minimum time that seems fair. For heavy trucks, construction equipment, coaches (viz long distance buses) etc, diesel makes immense sense. And given they spend most of their time outside large cities the emissions are not such a large problem.

For existing products, you must let them ply till the end of the period for which they have paid road tax - so 15 years from first registration for most diesel cars but perhaps just 1 year for those who used the BH series loophole 😀

[anjan_c2007]

Reading through the recommendation in it's final report by the Energy Transition Advisory Committee, some excerpts are quoted hereunder :-

Diesel driven four wheelers may be eliminated as soon as possible. Therefore a ban on diesel powered four wheelers in all million-plus cities and towns with high pollution has to be enforced in five years, i.e. by 2027. No diesel powered city buses should be added in urban areas. From 2024 all new registrations for city delivery vehicles should be only electric so that in the next 10 years, 75% of the city delivery vehicles can be electric in all million plus cities.
The share of grid power in India's final energy consumption must to 40% from 18%, as a wider use of electricity will translate into a shift towards greater use in transport, cooking and industrial applications.

Going by the essence of the text used in the report, it presumably calls for a ban on new diesel vehicle sales in all such million plus population cities from 2027. The existing diesels may not be banned from plying in such cities as that would be totally disruptive for the transport infrastructure.

The domino effect starting today itself would be a slowdown and perhaps very soon a total refraining from purchases of diesel powered 3, 4, 6 and 6 plus wheelers including cars and CV's, by buyers. Can we imagine the impact on car, three wheeler and truck/bus sales due to the nebulous situation and uncertainties created by this report ?

We have seen this happen when two Union Ministers said ICE two wheeler sales will be banned by 2025 and later one saying that India will stop production of all ICE vehicles, come 2035. Customers refrained from new vehicle purchases for months together.

The shiftover to non ICE powered vehicles is inevitable and can't be stopped. But if there is a clear road map for such a shift made well in advance, both customers and auto makers can preplan their next move.

[ferrarirules]

Originally Posted by PreludeSH

It could be or is it ? 10 years is different from saying a specific date of 2027:

It is could be only. The current report has only shared its findings / recommendations with the govt. Now it is upto govt to review and implement the report as a policy

[Rishu]

Originally Posted by ferrarirules

Petroleum ministry energy transition advisory committee has submitted its final report and has recommended a diesel 4 wheeler ban in all cities with million plus population by 2027.

and here in my city Power Cuts occur's ranging from half an hour to 11 hours a day.....