[RohaNN_kWh]

I have had this question in mind a lot of times, but in the long run EV's really do make sense, especially after seeing 5.5 km/l in the MID after some spirited driving,

But hey, for us its Smiles Per Gallon, not miles per gallon

I found this video very informative, it does explore a political view but makes sense !!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_T5DgsO0jc&t=854s

[COMMUTER]

We need to factor in the pollution from shipping which is getting ignored. There is a considerable difference in manufacturing cars locally and shipping them from 10000 miles away. The shipping containers use 'bunker fuel' which emits a huge amount of other harmful gases in addition to co2.

[locusjag]

Originally Posted by banana

Why not make cities more cycle friendly.

Being a hot country, adoption of cycling in most Indian cities is always going to be problematic. Cities are typically populated by folks who work somewhere (blue or white collar) and they can't arrive drenched with sweat where they work. And even otherwise, no one would prefer to sweat it out if they have a different means of transport.

[ads11]

Originally Posted by locusjag

Being a hot country, adoption of cycling in most Indian cities is always going to be problematic. Cities are typically populated by folks who work somewhere (blue or white collar) and they can't arrive drenched with sweat where they work. And even otherwise, no one would prefer to sweat it out if they have a different means of transport.

This is a fair point but when you couple cycling centric societies with the concept of a 15 Minute City, you really start to negate the issue drastically! A lot of offices might then adopt showering facilities to allow cycling employees to freshen up and make themselves presentable the way you have say in Europe. It also has the ancillary benefits of contributing to greater public fitness, and the reduced healthcare costs that come with that and the improved air quality and so on and so forth. But granted, ideally people would avoid any effort at all, in that case maybe a better use of battery resources would be e-bikes, where the motor assist can greatly reduce a lot of the strain.

Anyway, as has been discussed in cycling threads elsewhere there's other more difficult long term societal mindsets to get around before we can have a say Scandi style cycling centric society in urban centres again. I can't help but think the irony is that once upon a time cycling was the primary form of mobility in the subcontinent and SE Asia and no one would've batted an eyelid about the prospect but now when an ideal solution to a lot of urban issues would be a return to most people cycling, societies in these countries have gone a full 180°.

I think what's abundantly clear is that the EV mobility revolution as an antidote to a lot of problems cannot solely be on the private user side only. Meaningful change will only be possible when coupled with efficient, and cleaner (doesn't even have to be cleanest given the sheer scale in India), large scale public transportation networks (road and rail). India has such a culture of rail travel, it baffles me slightly that the govt isn't leaning harder on this particular angle to drive the cleaner mobility revolution in the country, especially when there's such an easy way to leverage large scale public employment through govt led railway improvement schemes. Anyway I'm digressing slightly.

[Vikram9193]

Originally Posted by ads11

This is a fair point but when you couple cycling centric societies with the concept of a 15 Minute City, you really start to negate the issue drastically! A lot of offices might then adopt showering facilities to allow cycling employees to ….. But granted, ideally people would avoid any effort at all, in that case maybe a better use of battery resources would be e-bikes, where the motor assist can greatly reduce a lot of the strain.

For people who don’t want to cycle and want personal mobility with crash safety and AC too, a Twizy or Carver style vehicle is appealing. Won’t take up much more space than a two wheeler and have a seat at the back for a companion or for keeping the shopping. Also more fun to drive than a two ton EV!

[chandu]

This is a pretty complicated topic and it is very difficult to compare the life cycle cost of a EV vs ICE car.
Here is a fairly well researched article New EV vs. old beater: Which is better for the environment? | Ars Technica

This gives one data point, I also have a pdf from volvo comparing their XC40 Recharge with their standard XC40. Turns out that depending on where you get your charging power from the crossover point can be <50k miles to over 100k miles. I can post the pdf but I dont know how to.

The best thing about EV's for city dwellers is that the road side (tail pipe) emissions are eliminated, however, they are just moved to the power station where hopefully the emissions are better controlled, maybe even renewable. Road side emissions are responsible for a raft of health issues and it would be fantastic to reduce this aspect in India. I would love it if we could move all our RTC buses to electric.
I would love to buy a electric car to replace my current one but I am waiting as my car is only 4 years old and I will keep it till I can get a reasonable replacement. I do drive long distances and we go on road trips so a good highway charging infrastructure would be critical and I am very hopeful that this will start coming up soon in India.

Cheers..

[ads11]

Originally Posted by Vikram9193

For people who don’t want to cycle and want personal mobility with crash safety and AC too, a Twizy or Carver style vehicle is appealing. Won’t take up much more space than a two wheeler and have a seat at the back for a companion or for keeping the shopping. Also more fun to drive than a two ton EV!

I should add that dedicated cycle friendly infrastructure makes a huge difference in making cycling appealing and reassuring. Bad experiences from cycling in London when I was younger put me off it entirely until Manchester used lockdown 1 to build Dutch style cycling infrastructure everywhere at which point it really became a lot more palatable. In our country it's hard to imagine sure that you won't have none cyclists encroaching in dedicated cycle lanes, should space for the latter even be found in the first place! But the point still stands.

Funnily enough a neighbour down my street has the Twizy and to my surprise it has a bigger footprint than you'd think.

[Vikram9193]

Originally Posted by ads11

I should add that dedicated cycle friendly infrastructure makes a huge difference in making cycling appealing and reassuring. Bad experiences from cycling in London when I was younger put me off it entirely until Manchester used lockdown 1 to build Dutch style cycling infrastructure everywhere at which point it really became a lot more palatable…

Funnily enough a neighbour down my street has the Twizy and to my surprise it has a bigger footprint than you'd think.

That’s interesting. I’m all for cycling myself but these days in the forty degree heat in India, even in Dehradun... maybe if I didn’t head home for lunch ha. I also test rode the Svitch XE electric bike pictured below because something about the fat tyres and distinctive appearance made me feel more secure about trying to ride it in dense traffic sans cycle lanes. The company was tentatively willing to sell me the 500W export model, which might have been just quick enough to keep up with the general flow of small town traffic in a way that would feel safer than being pushed to the side and overtaken all the time. Concerns about quality and service coupled with a high purchase cost have put me off for now. Real cycle lanes would be a dream come true of course.

[chinkara]

Originally Posted by ads11

I should add that dedicated cycle friendly infrastructure makes a huge difference in making cycling appealing and reassuring. Bad experiences from cycling in London when I was younger put me off it entirely until Manchester used lockdown 1 to build Dutch style cycling infrastructure everywhere at which point it really became a lot more palatable. In our country it's hard to imagine sure that you won't have none cyclists encroaching in dedicated cycle lanes, should space for the latter even be found in the first place! But the point still stands.

Funnily enough a neighbour down my street has the Twizy and to my surprise it has a bigger footprint than you'd think.

I have actually worked on making Indian cities cycling friendly - was once part of a GOI task force on the same, and also worked on a model where cycle rental stands were created next to metro stations in Delhi. What I realized is that making a cycle model in India is very difficult because of the following reasons:
1. For 9 months of the year cycling is not feasible unless the commute is early morning or late evening. Forget sweat, at 11 AM in Delhi it is difficult to cycle 2 km without getting a heat stroke
2. In cities with successful rental models (London, Amsterdam, Shanghai) there is a balance throughout the day in terms of rental load. In India, the office crowd is typically early morning-late evening. The afternoon crowd (housewives shopping / school kids / traveling salesmen) typically prefer other forms due to various reasons (not comfortable cycling in public / school buses and perceived security issues / motorcycle being more comfortable for samples etc.). This makes utilization low and makes the rental model unviable
3. 15 mile city etc. is impractical in the Indian context simply because of population. What you can do in Malta or Nyom cannot be done in Mumbai or Bangalore. So cycling has to be coupled with metro or something similar. Carrying personal bikes (folding bikes / now folding e-bikes are being launched) in a crowded metro is going to be too much hassle - feasible only in off peak.
4. Vandalism and pilferage means you have to have attendants at every stage (apart from the asset loss) which makes rental further unviable

Yes, there was a time when most people used to cycle. But that was also a time when women rarely worked and it was easy to locate close to the office of the main bread earner. Now if the husband works in BKC and wife in Vashi how can cycle be the commute, especially if they live in Goregaon? And how on earth are you going to get an accommodation close to BKC if this is a young couple starting out on their careers?

So while everything should be done to encourage cycling (lanes, rental facilities etc.) I am also resigned to the fact that people used to the convenience of personal cars and bikes would rarely use them. The genie cannot be put back into the bottle.

Good, convenient public transport is a much better bet IMHO.

[Vikram9193]

Originally Posted by chinkara

1. For 9 months of the year cycling is not feasible unless the commute is early morning or late evening. Forget sweat, at 11 AM in Delhi it is difficult to cycle 2 km without getting a heat stroke….
3. 15 mile city etc. is impractical in the Indian context simply because of population. What you can do in Malta or Nyom cannot be done in Mumbai or Bangalore. So cycling has to be coupled with metro or something similar. Carrying personal bikes (folding bikes / now folding e-bikes are being launched) in a crowded metro is going to be too much hassle - feasible only in off peak.

It might take a very different world but with UBI and a helluva lot of trees even Delhi could be a cyclable 15 minute city. Yes, I’ve heard the phrase “pie in the sky”

[ads11]

Originally Posted by chinkara

I have actually worked on making Indian cities cycling friendly - was once part of a GOI task force on the same, and also worked on a model where cycle rental stands were created next to metro stations in Delhi

That's really cool! It's good to know that someone tried, and that the GoI at least thought about it.

What I realized is that making a cycle model in India is very difficult because of the following reasons

Right, I won't deny that realistically there's loads of road blocks to actual cycle adoption in India. If the frequent heatwaves are anything to go by, it makes it a practical nonstarter. On the vandalism front, I remember when Manchester had the ignominy of being the first global city the bike sharing scheme Mobike pulled out from. Not to mention the countless instances you see stateside of rental two wheelers being vandalised as well. I don't think that's a uniquely Indian problem.

Good, convenient public transport is a much better bet IMHO.

I think this goes without saying. Better public transport is such an obvious solution to so many structural problems in our cities. On trips to Calcutta I have started seeing more electric busses so that's a step in the right direction. I'm not sure how much penetration there is in terms of EV autorickshaws but surely there's another area to cut emissions (though I guess banning the old two strokes and going LNG made quite a positive shift?).

[rahulskumar]

The only gripe I have with EV's is the fire incidents that happen during major accidents. Ive seen many reports where the complete car gets gutted down along with the people sitting inside. I will wait for few more years before plunging into EV's. I would prefer a smaller EV just for city runs with less sophistication, remember old reva ? Will wait for Maruti to launch wagon-r electric

[aquavivarium]

Forget environment on a global scale or whole of India, if we even convert all of freight movement between metros of this country to electric , that will be a huge impact. Pollution is also about where it happens.

Private 4 Wheeler engine choice doesn't have a appreciable impact in a huge country like ours.

OPEC nations will simply not allow alternative technology to take lead and no one knows when the resources will finish. I am not interested in these "sounding big" un realistic razzmatazz.

Simply living mindfull and doing elementary things like switching off useless power makes you feel good and offcourse does have an effect.

I love the pure torque of an electric car, the silent drive also the fact that my home is my gas station. I will buy it at a right price point and the reason I am here is my selfless love for motoring. So I don't care about environment in this sense but I do live and act in daily life to minimise my C footprint.

[nerdgalore]

We should also not forget the efficiency of ICE engine as compared to electric motor and battery. While engines are around 30% efficient, rest getting lost in heat, motors and batteries are more than 90% efficient and will get better with time. ICE engines have reached their peak and most advancements have been in performance and reliability.

[banana]

Originally Posted by chinkara

I have actually worked on making Indian cities cycling friendly - was once part of a GOI task force on the same, and also worked on a model where cycle rental stands were created next to metro stations in Delhi.

Glad that you have actually made attempts, I mostly blabber about these things.

Originally Posted by chinkara

Now if the husband works in BKC and wife in Vashi how can cycle be the commute, especially if they live in Goregaon? And how on earth are you going to get an accommodation close to BKC if this is a young couple starting out on their careers?

I personally like this thing about Mumbai. A good amount of the commute happens in local. It is more reliable, more time efficient. I have 2 instances to share.

One time I was suppose to be at some place within a limited amount of time, approached a cab, asked if the driver will take me to my destination (some 30ish kms away, mostly highways), he suggested that I take the local and dropped to the nearby station. I would not have made it within that amount of time if he would have tried to help me by taking the road. Amount of carbon that the Mumbai local is saving in my opinion is more than I can compute.

Other time, I read about some new hybrid buses launched by Volvo. About 2 weeks later, spotted a slightly differently colored AC bus on JVLR close to IIT. I read the badge, it was one of those hybrids. These buses are running on the same routes as existing city buses. Some quantity of carbon would have been saved there too.

Originally Posted by aquavivarium

Pollution is also about where it happens.

Private 4 Wheeler engine choice doesn't have a appreciable impact in a huge country like ours.

Completely agree.

Most personal use vehicle are very well looked after. All services are done by the odo or the calendar during the warranty duration by most of the people.

I also have seen people doing well under 10k kms a year. These vehicles are contributing very less by burning fuel.

Highway hauler using the long rang heavy load models are usually maintaining a constant speed and may not be harming as much as
- overloaded model
- overaged model (buses/trucks/anything)
- not so well kept water tankers stopping at every signal and trying really really hard to gain momentum before reaching another point to stop and repeat the same workout.

This may be going too off topic. With the current set of options, we have some choices. We do get the opportunity to make the right call every few years (whenever one buys a new set of wheels). We just have to make the best choice for our specific use case every time with options available as of that day when we do make our choices.

Please share your views.