Electric Vehicles in India! Too Soon?

India is shooting big on EV's. With all the plans of building 100,000 Electric pumps by 2035, 25% of all non commercial vehicles to be electric by 2025, Ordering cab companies to turn 40% of their cars electric and only producing electric cars post 2030 India seems to be having high hopes in order to reduce pollution caused by conventional road vehicles. India is a nation with population of over 1.2 billion. With expected over 50 million four-wheeler running on the road of the country let's have a look at what will change in this mega step of going green.

Before we dig deep into the structural changes that the whole nation will have to go through for this giant leap let's understand the primary problems with EV's that the nation will face. Given below are two examples of how fueling an Electric Vehicles will be completely different than fueling your ordinary everyday petrol car.

Case 1: Consider a Tesla Model S to b an average Electric Sedan. A Tesla S gives a mileage of 590 Kms once fully charged which is one of the finest performance in EV industry. Tesla S charged with Tesla charger with a NEMA 14-50 connector will take 10 hours to fully charge. This mean for every minute you spend on filling up your cars fuel tank or battery you get to drive almost 1 Kilometer.

Case 2: On the other hand let's consider a petrol sedan. Specifically Honda City, one of the nations favourite sedan. Honda City has a 40L fuel tank and gives a mileage of at least 17 Km/L. Which means a Honda City completely filled with petrol can run 680 kilometers. And even on a busy day on a petrol pump it takes barely 15 minutes to fill the tank. Which means for every minute you spend on filling up your cars fuel tank you get to drive 45 Kilometers.

That is significantly more than what you get on the best performing Electric Vehicles.

Now you might ask "Why does fueling time even matte?"

Well, because if Government is planning to replace 12.5 million ordinary cars with Electric Vehicles will the electric car owners be able to have their private home charging ports? Since leaving your car at a petrol pump for several hours doesn't make sense overnight charging seems to be the only viable option in India & Unlike in United Stated or any developed economy majority Indians live in apartment which barely has enough parking space to accommodate vehicles. Do India have enough shopping malls, parking lots, gyms, libraries and public places with pay and charge points where people tend to spend hours letting their car sit idle and benefit from Top Up Charging? Or will India have enough of them by 2025?

Going Green and moving to electric vehicles with a mass of users can be a big move for a nation with such dense population and too little infrastructural support EV's in India still appear to be a sci-fi dream.

Do let us know about your thoughts in the comment below.