[TusharK]

As electric vehicles become more accessible thanks to government sops, more and more people are transitioning to EVs. The electric 2-wheeler segment, in particular, has seen immense growth in the recent past and according to Tarun Mehta, Co-founder and CEO, Ather Energy, e-scooters will account for 20% of the overall 2-wheeler market by the end of the current fiscal.



Mehta stated that the market share of e-scooters has increased from 3-4% to 12% in just 6 months. In the next 12-18 months, he expects the market penetration of e-scooters to rise to almost 25-30%.

He also stated that things have come a long way since 2013 when customers had to be convinced that electric vehicles were not a toy. Now, demand is 2-3 times more than supply. Even Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities have registered decent growth.

Mehta also highlighted the need for an EV policy tailored to India's social and environmental conditions. He said that EV makers will face a huge challenge when subsidies end in the next 2 to 3 years.

Source: Autocar Professional

Link to Team-BHP News

[PreludeSH]

Yes, right. They will also be lighting up everywhere until they put some effort to build reliable/safe 2 wheelers.

Cant they use some other battery technology (NiMH ?) even if it means little energy dense ? Try to be safe first and then advance towards more energy storage ?

[fhdowntheline]

Really speaking, there is no escaping fossil fuel burning with regard to EV usage, just a transfer of the source. Secondly, considering the foreseeable coal shortages, I wonder how setting up EV charging stations will be sustainable. In fact, any further discussion on EV market expansion is intrinsically linked to availability of power supply. In contrast, raising petroleum resources is still relatively less complicated.

[shortbread]

Originally Posted by fhdowntheline

Really speaking, there is no escaping fossil fuel burning with regard to EV usage, just a transfer of the source. Secondly, considering the foreseeable coal shortages, I wonder how setting up EV charging stations will be sustainable. In fact, any further discussion on EV market expansion is intrinsically linked to availability of power supply. In contrast, raising petroleum resources is still relatively less complicated.

How India generates it's electricity is a call the government can make. It can also generate more electricity if needed and no one can doubt the fact India is generating more clean energy through solar, nuclear, hydro, wind etc each year.

Petroleum on the other hand is a source where India is enslaved to external factors and simply a helpless spectator of it's fluctuations. If petroleum consumption increases, India has to import more from outside.

[fhdowntheline]

Originally Posted by shortbread

How India generates it's electricity is a call the government can make. It can also generate more electricity if needed and no one can doubt the fact India is generating more clean energy through solar, nuclear, hydro, wind etc each year.

India, like most countries is going through a flux of politico-economic changes, industrial output variations and climate fluctuations. Under the circumstances, reliable supply of energy is a prime requirement for stability and growth. I may be off the mark, but the combine of all the "alternative " sources doesn't seem to be enough to cater to peak demands. Amidst all this, loading the grid with E-vehicles, especially 2 wheelers would cause additional distortions. Yes, there is money saved elsewhere on import of petroleum, but will that money be efficiently utilized for optimizing energy output? Or will it again go into the ever deepening morass of populist freebies ?

[shortbread]

Originally Posted by fhdowntheline

Yes, there is money saved elsewhere on import of petroleum, but will that money be efficiently utilized for optimizing energy output? Or will it again go into the ever deepening morass of populist freebies ?

Politely disagree because I am sure India would rather prefer what you call 'populist freebies' over fattening sheikhs and oligarchs of some distant geography. Whether or how the money is efficiently utilised becomes a political argument and doesn't hold place on this thread. What we can agree on is that there's a saving to be made.

India spent $119.2 billion in 2021-22 importing crude (April 2021 to March 2022), up from $62.2 billion in the previous fiscal year. This fiscal year this is highly likely to touch $150 billion+. That is massive amount of outflows any which way one looks at it. We are being held hostage by the whims and fancies of OPEC+.

Therefore without digressing, my point is it's imperative that India finds domestic solutions for transportation energy solutions because importing oil is simply bleeding the nation. Rest assured we are far far more capable of generating more of our own electricity than producing domestic crude. India's domestic crude production has declined over the last decade and continues to do so.

Originally Posted by fhdowntheline

India, like most countries is going through a flux of politico-economic changes, industrial output variations and climate fluctuations. Under the circumstances, reliable supply of energy is a prime requirement for stability and growth. I may be off the mark, but the combine of all the "alternative " sources doesn't seem to be enough to cater to peak demands. Amidst all this, loading the grid with E-vehicles, especially 2 wheelers would cause additional distortions.

Let's be clear, we are the world's third largest electricity producer and have surplus power generation capacity. Our biggest challenge lies in adequate fuel supply, transmission and distribution infrastructure. Half of our electricity is generated from coal and we have our own coal reserves. We still do import coal and prices have shot up. India aims to increase its domestic coal production to 1.2 billion mt by 2023-24 to reduce imports, a near 75% rise from what the country produces currently.

We keep adding 4-5% additional capacity each year. Renewable energy (Solar, wind etc) + hydro + nuclear constitutes nearly 40% of our power generation. The government plans to establish renewable energy capacity of 523 GW by 2030.

Rest assured India has come leaps and bounds in generating electricity, today one can unequivocally say that we're good at it. Our transmission infrastructure keeps improving and no doubt there's a long way to go. Albeit this we can achieve on our own and we're less vulnerable to external factors.

[deep_bang]

Let me post a very different view of how EVs are actually easier to manage in a lot of small towns.

Today, in small villages, you don't have a petrol pump. You buy petrol in bottles from other vendors charging a premium.

Electricity is actually at home. It's actually easier to charge an EV than fuel an ICE 2 wheeler in many places.

All we need is a bunch of reliable 2 wheeler EVs and people are going to lap it up.

For the city folks too, EVs work out cheaper, less maintenance cost in the long run.

The advantage of going towards EV is that even if we are burning coal today (not that we are), it enables a seamless transition to renewables tomorrow. And tomorrow is not even a decade away. It's a few years from now where we may go from 40 to over 50% renewables. That's a crazy amount of energy security, considering most of this investment pays for the next 25 years.

[SlowRider]

deep_bang makes a very good point.

Scooters, specifically, are a very good niche for EVs to take over. They're usually used within the city/town/village - I suspect most scooter users cover 50km or less per day on average. So an electric scooter with 80-100km is good enough for that usage.

One aspect of scooter ownership that annoyed me a lot was the frequent visits to the pump. My TVS Wego has a 6 liter tank, but in practical terms, if I filled it when the fuel gauge was close to 'E', it only took 2.5 liters for the tank to fill up. So if you didn't wanna take chances driving with the needle close to empty, your effective range was 2.5 liters * 35kmpl = 87km. This means queueing up at the pump every 3 days or so. With an electric vehicle, my vehicle is charged at home and I get my life back.