JAY JOSHI
India is one of the leading countries making an effort to reduce their carbon footprint and a greener society and economy. Vehicles running on conventional fuels are a major contributor to pollution, and India is now making an attempt to take petrol and diesel cars off the streets, replacing them with electric cars. The government has currently asked app based taxi service firms in the country to replace 40 percent of their fleet with electric vehicles by 2016, and NITI Ayog has also issued a note proposing that only electric cars be sold in India after 2030.
Statistics suggest that in the financial year that ended in March 2019, only about 3600 electric vehicles were sold in India, which is just one percent of total vehicle sales in the country. The sale of petrol and diesel cars for the same period stood at around 3.3 million. Interestingly, the number of electric vehicles sold in China during the same period was 1.3 million.
On that note, making in India a fully electric vehicle country by 2030 seems to be a lofty goal, but experts from the auto industry believe it is achievable if the government and industry work on a war footing.
“Introduction of electric vehicles is the need of the hour and has full support from the industry”, says Prashant Joshi, president of Goa Automobile Dealers Association. “The idea that a ‘lobby’ attempting to preserve the dominance of petrol and diesel vehicles will oppose the move does not hold any ground, because the same companies that are manufacturing conventional cars are also offering electric vehicles. So, the vehicles are ready. However, there is a need to set up logistics such as charging points for electric cars”, he states.
“When it comes to finding customers, Indian customers have always been welcoming towards new technology as can be seen from the popularity of new cell phones and other gadgets. If issues such as mileage are addressed effectively, I think Indian populace will enthusiastically embrace electric cars,” adds Joshi.
Ritesh Madhok, the Mumbai based editor of Motorworld magazine, also underlines that while the industry is ready with both product as well as supporting services, setting up of logistics holds the key to the success of electric vehicles.
“I do not think we are logistically ready for electric vehicles yet. Apart from adequate charging stations there has to be mass production of batteries, and facilities to recycle used batteries as well. Secondly, presently, there is not much awareness about electric vehicles in the general populace. There are no advertisements, campaigns for educational drives to speak of that urge the public to buy electric cars. Knowledge and desire to buy electric cars is limited to some tech-savvy people. Even when these people want to buy electric cars, factors such as lack of proper logistics affects their decision,” says Madhok.
It may be noted that in an official statement issued in 2018, the central government had stated that it will be working towards setting up one electric charging point every 25 kilometres.
That said, another major issue is supply of electricity. Goa does not manufacture its own power, and the state faces constant power outages, especially during the summer and monsoon. According to the most recent available data, Goa currently receives about 392 MW power from the western region and 100 MW from the southern region. THe state’s totoal power requirement is between 572-610 MW, and the balance is procured from Indian Energy Exchange (IEX) programme.
Even though problems related to supply have been resolved, the state faces issues relating to the distribution of power. Recently, power minister Nilesh Cabral has stated that the extra high voltage stations of Goa lack the ability to distribute power in many areas of the state.
While cities such as Mumbai or Bangalore run electric buses, Goa still has a long way to go to prepare itself for the age of electric vehicles. On the bright side, the state government has decided to upgrade its power transmission network at an estimated cost of Rs 1000 crore.
