[yaleen]

Along with pollution we should also be concerned with India's electrical grid infrastructure and whether it would be able to sustain the increases in volume of electric cars.

We all know that electric cars do need a lot more electricity for charging than your normal usage in a household. Will India's electric infrastructure be capable of handling this increased load in stressed areas? We first only have blackouts and load shedding, will this go up in the future?

Also, there are huge number of people who stay in apartments who would desire to own electric cars and should be the direction to reduce pollution in cities. But power supply to apartments are capped based on sanctioned loads. Will transformers be able to handle these loads?

Sorry if this has been discussed in previous posts, but just saw a video on the net where a US congressman was questioning Bidens statement of moving to electric vehicles in future without thinking of all the logistics involved. Thought India would also have the same problem and wanted to post this here.

[Ragul]

This should improve the situation in the next decade:

https://energy.economictimes.indiati...-mode/90484422

With the first pour of concrete for a 700 MW atomic power plant in Karnataka's Kaiga scheduled in 2023, India is set to put in motion construction activities for 10 'fleet mode' nuclear reactors over the next three years.

Of course the "Green"ing of Nuclear power as a preferred alternative to coal is its own controversy...

[RoadMonkey]

Does it account for the carbon emissions in production and procurement of materials for EVs vis a vis comparable ICE cars? Because that's a big factor. Combine that with coal generated electricity and I can see why EVs would be more polluting in the short run. Heck even in the long run it remains to be seen how we deal with the battery recycling in India once the batteries start degrading.

[SKC-auto]

Originally Posted by RoadMonkey

Does it account for the carbon emissions in production and procurement of materials for EVs vis a vis comparable ICE cars? Because that's a big factor. Combine that with coal generated electricity and I can see why EVs would be more polluting in the short run. Heck even in the long run it remains to be seen how we deal with the battery recycling in India once the batteries start degrading.

The study can be accessed from here
https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/elect...ml#post5361532 (EVs in India are more polluting than petrol/diesel vehicles)

This is the text from the study, relevant to your question.

This exercise incorporated emissions from the energy life cycle (i.e., fuels and electricity production), vehicle manufacturing (including battery production and end-of-life recycling), and vehicle use.

Conclusion from this oil company funded report is, Tata Nexon EV is cleaner to run anywhere in India compared to Petrol Nexon, Nexon EV is cleaner than Nexon Diesel in most parts of India.

The best part, the study is only about GHG gases, it did not consider harmful effects of particulates from ICE cars on health.

What more proof one needs, even the oil companies realized they cannot publish reports against EVs without ridiculing themselves. This is just the start, these studies are irrelevant at 100% renewable power generation.

[G V Krishna]

Ohh.. not again!!!! We had multiple discussions on this issue and widely agreed that EVs are here to stay and are the future at least as personal vehicles.

The other members have already added crucial points from the report and also generic arguments on advantages of EVs. But let me add one more point that is efficiency of Energy conversion. As all of us know, energy can neither be created nor destroyed but can only be converted into other forms. With this principle, please note that the efficiency of Thermal (coal, crude oil derivatives, gas, garbage etc.,) power stations is far higher than a car/vehicle engine plying on a road. When you consider this and look at a larger picture, EVs are still environmentally better than vehicles that run on Crude Oil Derivatives.

Only grousing points with EVs as on today are the mining operations of rare earth minerals & Battery recycling. Note that I didn't mention charging infrastructure because the moment PSU Oil companies realize that EVs are the future, their dealers of petrol pumps will be pressurized to start providing charging infra & I see this happening.

And on the sponsor of this study I see that the concept and the word "Conflict of Interest" has committed suicide.

[RubberGuru1113]

Originally Posted by DarthVeda

Coal powered EV might not be that great, but it is ALWAYS better crude powered vehicles. The efficiency of EV motor is upwards of 85%, where as fuel vehicles is less than 40%.

Slight problem in your calculations. IC engine efficiency is between 20% minimum to 35% max I agree, but all the energy conversion is done in the vehicle. Thermal power plants have an efficiency of 29% max, and with a battery efficiency of 85%, the overall efficiency is just under 25%.

So EVs with 100% coal powered electricity is comparable or slightly worse than the mean IC engine.

Originally Posted by DarthVeda

And if we are considering carbon emissions, let's not forget that Crude extraction and Crude refining isn't exactly CARBON FREE, and transportation of the said fuel to it's destination is over trucks, which adds more carbon emission. Whilst the transmission of electricity to the said destination is carbon free

Agreed, but mining of coal, transportation, etc. is also not carbon free, and coal mining is extremely hazardous and has respiratory and other health issues associated with it.

While I agree that the motivation of the study may be in question, there is absolutely no argument against the fact that the benefits of EVs to the environment would be realised only when the world moves towards renewable energy sources.

There is also the not so small matter of the shipping and aviation industries which have an 80%+ share in greenhouse emissions but there is nothing on the horizon to replace diesel/gasoline for these applications.

[IP_Man]

Coal-fired power plants achieving an average 33 percent efficiency.

Gasoline ICEV ranges between 11–27 % and diesel ICEV ranges from 25 % to 37 %.

Average petroleum refinery efficiency is 88%. So eliminate small roll of refinery on carbon footprint. From above two lines it is clear ( I have not considered carbon emission of lithium batteries manufacturing) that by using EV in India is not going to reduce overall carbon footprint but EV may benefit densely populated cities like Delhi to reduce concentrated polluted air.

If we think EV will bring magic to carbon footprint then we are living in fool's paradise. Is our government really serious about reducing overall carbon footprint? Sadly no. Forget about planting new trees, we can not even stop destruction of already grown green forest. Look at western ghat depleting forest cover. To whom we are fooling?

[Durango Dude]

I live in Chennai and in one of the best residential areas here, we're having power outages on a regular basis and there's also going to be an increase in tariff and the power consumption reading is done manually here and there's a lot of scope for manipulation by the person who comes to record the power consumption every alternate month. I was in for a huge shock when the power consumption figures for April May 2020 peak Covid lockdown made a huge jump to 12000 rupees for my office which was locked for that period and all complaints fell on deaf ears as is always this was the situation in many places in Chennai and TN as the these buggers who come to take the reading had been instructed by the TNEB to do this. I'd rather fill gas than run from pillar to post to complain which I'm sure will not be attended to. In India Strong Hybrids with incentives from Govt would make a better case than going for EV's, trying to "leap frog" directly to EV's without proper infrastructure is going to be a rather difficult proposition.

[SKC-auto]

Originally Posted by RubberGuru1113

Slight problem in your calculations. IC engine efficiency is between 20% minimum to 35% max I agree, but all the energy conversion is done in the vehicle. Thermal power plants have an efficiency of 29% max, and with a battery efficiency of 85%, the overall efficiency is just under 25%.

There is also the not so small matter of the shipping and aviation industries which have an 80%+ share in greenhouse emissions but there is nothing on the horizon to replace diesel/gasoline for these applications.

Petroleum refineries also need massive electricity, to refine 1 Litre petrol takes 1.3kwh electricity. It's better to use that electricity directly into EVs than refine into petrol for ICE cars.

Please remember that the final goal is renewable + EVs, no one supporting coal. Once we achieve this goal, ICE cars still need fuel to be pumped, refined & transported.

Shipping and aviation account for 6% of green house emissions, surface transport account for 15%, it's easy to electrify surface transport.

[RubberGuru1113]

Originally Posted by SKC-auto

Shipping and aviation account for 6% of green house emissions, surface transport account for 15%, it's easy to electrify surface transport.

I stand corrected on this

[landmaster18]

This is already known. I am however surprised it took so much time for it to get to mainstream media. One also needs to consider the impacts of extracting critical minerals for EV production. The costs are great. The biodiversity losses that come with it are even worse. Makes crude oil and nat gas extraction seem so tame really!

Most importantly, most of the resources needed for EVs are located in geographies with highest amount of climate change impacts. Chile for example!

[DarthVeda]

One also needs to consider the impacts of extracting critical minerals for EV production. The costs are great. The biodiversity losses that come with it are even worse. Makes crude oil and nat gas extraction seem so tame, really!

Biodiversity loss is higher in mineral extraction? Do see where the oil fields are located, up in the arctic circle, gulf of Mexico, etc?

What about the umpteen oil spills? There is even a movie about the mishap that happened on an offshore drill!

All the oil companies get is a spank, and they are off to doing the same thing again, and this is not even considering the damage being done by Fracking.

most of the resources needed for EVs are located in geographies with the highest amount of climate change impacts. Chile, for example!

Mining in the salt plains will have a higher amount of climate change than in the arctic circle, rainforests, and just offshore? No man.

FYI, many of these rare-earths are also used in refining crude and more than what goes to make onto a battery. But no one bats an eye on that, do they?

[s.sriram1989@gm]

Originally Posted by GTO

The debate of coal-powered electricity and the carbon footprint of EVs vs ICE vehicles will continue till the cows come home. But it's important for us to understand that EVs will significantly reduce the pollution in metros like Delhi (deadly AQI), Mumbai (getting to dangerous levels) etc. Even if the electricity is "bad", it still allows you to move the pollution out of congested urban areas. Do you keep garbage dedicated in one spot of your house, or is it strewn all around your apartment? EVs will help with that kind of planning at the nationwide level..

If and only if there is a strict policy laid down for waste management for the batteries from local mechanic level to the manufacturer workshop level, would the idea of saving environment. Just refer to the way existing battery vehicles are being handled, the e rickshaws and e scooters in Delhi. It is an eye opener for the authorities.