Is growing EV adoption really good for India?

Photo by Kindel Media: https://www.pexels.com/photo/ev-charger-in-california-usa-9800004/

 There is no doubt about the fact that EV adoption has taken off in India. The evidence of this is most prominently visible in the shape of e-rickshaws and electric two-wheelers that seem to be proliferating all around us. We also see a sizeable number of electric cars parked in Indian residential areas or moving around the roads of the larger cities of India. The EV sales in 2023 surpassed 1.5 million in 2023, a whopping 50% increase over the previous year. Overall EVs contributed to an already impressive 6.38% of India's total auto sales. [1]

All of this seemingly is in line with the nation's strategy of reducing the reliance on fossil fuels and contributing to the fight against environmental pollution. But is it really? While it is a fact that electric vehicles have no tail-pipe emissions, the source of the electricity being used to charge the batteries of these vehicles determines how much net pollution is caused by EVs. With coal accounting for 75% of the electricity produced in the country, [2]the increased use of electric vehicles may not actually contribute much to a cleaner environment.

Add to that the fact that electricity is heavily subsidized or even provided free to many in India's rural hinterland and you begin to create a problem for yourself. There is already a proliferation of demand for electric two-wheelers in the rural areas. Sensing opportunity in this fast-growing segment a large number of emerging entrepreneurs have entered the electric two-wheeler segment, pushing up the number of start-ups to over 150 from 54 in 202.  With the political parties of the day falling over each other in a race to provide the most subsidized or free power to rural areas, the environmental cost of coal-based generation is something that doesn't seem to have been taken into account.

Till the time that all EV charging stations source clean electricity produced using non-polluting renewable sources the unbridled expansion of electric mobility should receive a second look.  While electric cars by themselves are a lot more environmentally cleaner than internal combustion ones, one should also bear in mind the environmental problems associated with the materials (lithium) that go into the making of an electric car battery.

The growth of EVs in India is all very welcome but should be tempered with a lot of caution. Apart from ensuring that the vehicles are charged with clean electricity, an effort should also be made to encourage people to use public transport run using cleaner fuels like CNG. The growth in information technology has meant that people don't really need to commute as much as they used to in the past and the less people travel, the better it is for the environment. Till the time EV charging stations can boast to be 100% clean and green, ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) manufacturers can continue to refine their engines with regard to their producing fewer environmentally harmful emissions. The road to a green future is a long and arduous one and is anything but a linear journey.

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[1] https://energy.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/power/indias-ev-sales-surge-to-1-5-million-in-2023-up-50-report/106971357#:~:text=adoption%20of%20EVs.-,

[2] https://www.coal.nic.in/en/major-statistics/generation-of-thermal-power-from-raw-coal#:~:text=In%20India%2C%20power%20is%20generated,of%20the%20total%20power%20generation.

Time for Delhi Vehicles to Go Fully Electric?

 Delhi with more cars than Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata put together naturally grapples with immense pollution and its consequent ill effects. It had almost 11 million vehicles on its roads two years back in 2018. Mumbai, in comparison came in a distinct second at nearly three and a half million vehicles in the beginning of 2019.  If there is any city in India, indeed the world, where a case can be made out for an en masse migration to electric vehicles, it's Delhi. 
A study by IIT, Kanpur found that vehicular pollution contributes as much as between 20 to 25% of the PM10  and PM2.5 particulate matter found in Delhi's air. It therefore makes eminent sense for a concerted and immediate move to zero emission electric vehicles to help make the air that the people in the National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT) breathe actually breathable. That Delhi's vehicular traffic is a conglomeration of buses, cars, two-wheelers and three wheelers (including human powered rickshaws), means that the authorities have their task cut-out for them.

                Electric Scooter-Bjorsa / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)

The first thing that strikes one is that cars, though an important components of Delhi's vehicular traffic lag behind two-wheelers in terms of sheer numbers. Of the 10.9 million vehicles on Delhi's roads 7,078,428  were two-wheelers in comparison to 3,246,637 four-wheelers(cars and jeeps) . In addition there were 1,13,074 three wheel auto-rickshaws plying on Delhi's roads. Therefore, any talk of making Delhi vehicles go fully electric has to factor in two wheel and three wheel vehicles comprising as much as 65 % of the traffic in the NCT of Delhi.
So, it follows that a major part of the electrification of vehicular traffic in Delhi would have to focus on electric two wheelers and the already ubiquitous three wheel electric rickshaws. Not surprising in a country where car ownership stands at a modest 20 cars per thousand people. To put this in perspective, the corresponding figure for the United States is 800 cars per thousand people.

         Electric Car-Photo by Andrew Roberts on Unsplash

One would not be wrong is assuming that this is an idea whose time has come, in light of the growing popularity of e rickshaws as a "last mile connectivity" option.In fact, there are already  an impressive 1.5 million e rickshaws on India's streets.
Considering that the largest number of petrol powered vehicles in the Delhi region are two-wheelers, the newly announced  EV (Electric Vehicles) policy of the Delhi government is looking at incentivising the adoption of electric two-wheelers by the vast number of people who use these petrol driven vehicles to get around the city. The idea is to wean off as many as 50% of such people from using their conventional two wheel vehicles for electric ones by March 2023.  A generous purchase incentive of  Rs.30,000 ($403)for changing over to electric two-wheelers is expected to provide the much needed fillip to the drive.
The purchase of electric cars too has been incentivised by way of a Rs.5000 ($67) per k/Wh  or Rs.150,000 ($2,020)on the purchase of a four wheeler.  Besides, the road tax and registration fee waiver extended to all electric vehicles, too makes choosing electric mobility over conventionally powered vehicles very attractive. All in all the Delhi government is looking at registering an ambitious 500,000 electric vehicles in the coming five years.

                     Charging an Electric Car/Video by Gustavo Fring from Pexels

How far Delhi is able to successfully implement the ambitious, but well-intentioned EV policy will in many ways decide the fate of the electrification of vehicular traffic in the rest of the way. Delhi had shown the way in the past with the launch and astounding success of the Delhi Metro rail network, under seemingly impossible conditions. This led to a veritable revolution across the Indian urban landscape, what with the Delhi Metro model being replicated across most of  the major cities and towns in the country.
If Delhi could go fully electric with regard to its vehicular traffic in the next ten years, it would be a trail blazer amongst the megapolises of the world, with a cascading impact on cleansing the major population centers of the world of a major source of air pollution. This would set in motion a virtuous cycle comprising of a healthy workforce contributing more to the world economy, which in turn further improves their lifestyle. Besides, the industries supporting the new clean energy based transportation system would have created a whole new ecosystem of growth and prosperity minus much of the ill- effects associated with the old fossil fuel based one.
Of course, a lot would depend upon how clean the source of the electric power consumed by the largely electric transportation system  would itself be, but that is the subject of another article.