[sri_tesla]

Originally Posted by GTO

I frankly don't understand why a lot of us think "the arrival of EVs means the death of ICE". Petrol, diesel, hybrid & EVs all have their own pros & cons, and all can happily co-exist. Just as diesel & petrol have happily lived together in the same market for a century.

The reason for notions such as "the arrival of EVs means the death of ICE" is the inherent advantages of EVs over ICEs. These are lower running costs, lower maintenance costs, better performance, easier to drive, no noise, spacious cabin, default automatic transmission, etc... It's impossible to get all these benefits from ICE vehicles (petrol or diesel). If we want good performance and less noise, we need to go for luxury vehicles and pay through the nose. But even then the running and maintenance costs won't be less. Cheaper ICE vehicles will have lower performance and still have higher running costs. While the charging infrastructure has a long way to go, the real infrastructure (electricity) is already built even in very remote places. In any pincode of the country, electricity is much closer to you than the closest petrol bunk. The lack of a fast charging network does not stop EV adoption just like the lack of a reliable mobile signal network did not stop mobile adoption. Both EV adoption and fast charger network expansion will happen in parallel. There will be growing pains along the way, but that won't halt the growth of EV sales.

Petrol and diesel coexisting for over a century is not the same. Diesel vehicles do not have such massive benefits over petrol vehicles and vice-versa.

The market-share of EVs will surely grow, but maybe not to the projections that optimists had. IMHO, petrol engines still have a long future ahead of them. I'm almost as excited about 20-kmpl hybrids going mainstream as I am about EVs. Only thing is, the people behind hybrids (Toyota) are known to be painfully slow, while EVs...well, they have the aggressive Tata, Mahindra, Koreans & Chinese pushing them.

EV sales are growing at a much faster pace in major markets like China, the US and many of the European countries at a much faster pace than most of the analysts predicted. In 2017, China govt had set a target of achieving 50% NEV (BEV + PHEV) sales by 2035. Now, China is on track to achieve it by 2025 itself which is 10 years ahead of the initial target. In just 3 years of its launch, Model Y became the largest-selling car in the world. The fundamental reason for this achievement is that it's an EV. BYD overthrew VW as the best-selling brand in 2023 because of EV + PHEV's popularity.

Toyota and other legacy companies are not just losing in the Chinese market. They are also losing important markets like Southeast Asia, South and Central America, Australia, and Europe as well. Essentially, they are losing in all the countries where there are no trade barriers to Chinese companies. Companies like Ford, Stellantis, Hyundai, Tata, and Mahindra are lucky that the relations of the US and India with China are soured. Otherwise, we would have seen the rapid expansion of Chinese companies in these countries.

EV adoption won't be slow in India as many are predicting. It might be slow currently but that is due to the lack of proper options currently. As soon as there are good options at reasonable prices, people will switch to EVs en masse. There is a silent revolution already happening Indian 3-wheeler market. EVs account for more than 50% of sales in 3-wheelers already. Mahindra which is not known for 3-wheelers is selling 5,000+ electric 3-wheelers monthly which is very close to Piaggio's overall monthly 3-wheeler sales (~7,000). Electric scooters like Ola, Chetak, iQube are already in the top 10 best-selling scooters list.

[Hayek]

Originally Posted by Chrome6Boy

In my opinion EVs make sense for people who take occasional long trips on the highway and mostly use their own chargers.

My sense is that is the vast majority of car owners in India. When I look at my friend circle, most people think I am nuts for having driven to Goa 3-4 times or to South India once or even to Kutch from Bombay. The long drives for most people are to Mahabaleshwar or Nashik or at best Shirdi. And all these destinations can be reached easily in even a basic EV - with a maximum of one charging halt (my Ioniq could do all of these or even Aurangabad without a halt but some folks would call me elitist if I cited that). For anyone traveling say 50-60 km per day in and around urban India and doing the occasional long weekend trip to a destination 200-300 km away, EVs make immense sense. And for the odd road trip, is losing an hour and a half in a 600 km journey to recharge such a big deal?

Lots of the concerns of EVs emanate from the USA. Which is very different from India - in that there are plenty of people who regularly do 500-600 mile long weekend journeys, and that requires good charging infrastructure. Plus the USA has the lowest fuel prices - and has seen a sudden rise in interest rates which makes people more sensitive about capital cost than fuel cost. Finally, EVs are associated with liberals and the Trump base perhaps is staying away from them, while liberals may be somewhat reluctant to give their money to Musk. Net result, there is a temporary slow down in growth for EVs - with Tesla perhaps being hit harder due to increased competition and the Musk factor.

Economics are completely different in urban India. Our Ioniq has been driven 3750 km in a little over 2 months - and we have paid electricity bills of just ₹4200 so far. Frankly the tolls are the biggest expense so far in our car ownership journey. So let’s not get carried away by panic emanating from the USA - and focus on what makes sense for our use case.

[dsr001]

In the past one year, I have made multiple trips, typically crossing HR, UP/RAJ, MP borders in a single day.

You'd hardly see one or 2 EVs on the highways. So if you buy EV you'll be practically city bound.

Another trend is for the Mumbai Delhi expressway. Del to Jaipur there are only few stops, and at times there was a queue for toilet! Imagine what would happen for even petrol bunks, forget EVs.

[poloman]

I am not sure why people are happy with 250-300KM range for long drives. If this is acceptable, why battery life is a key issue for mobiles. Every one can charge the phone while they are sleeping. So 14-16 hours battery life good enough for a mobile?

Why I am particular on 10-12 hours drive time on an EV. It is a question on what you want to prioritize on a trip. I do Bangalore to Thrissur trips frequently 500Km roughly one direction. 10 hours, I normally take with breaks. Most of the restaurants will be crowded on the way, some will have even wait times. So I don't plan anything. Just tank full tank from Bangalore, have food at any place where rush is less. Reach Thrissur with 1/10 fuel remaining.

Now I can very well do the trip with an EV with 1-2 charging stops with a little planning. But as mentioned these routes are always crowded and where you will get a free charger, one cannot predict. Also 1-2 traffic jams are guaranteed. I don't have the mind space to constantly look at charger occupancy on the route and plan my trip around that. It is that simple.

Give me an EV with 600-700KM confirmed range 30-40L OTR price. I will happily switch.

[fazalmirza]

Wow. Amazing thread.
Seemingly, in the next 3 to 5 years 1000 kilometers range with charging time reduction is on the cards. Claims by scientists, researchers and manufacturers.

Necessity is the mother of innovation, isn't it?
We didn't much require a long lasting battery technology for mobiles until we got big screens and powerful chipsets. On these you have powerful applications and fast data network. And to sustain that you need longer lasting battery technology. Now, almost all good phones can last for at least a whole if not a day and half. Took us what, 10 years to get here.

By 2030, the question would probably turn on its head. If 10% odd people own a car today, much more will be buying or replacing theirs then. With expected double the range of today and half the charging time; I am also suspecting par pricing with ICE cars. Effectively, why would someone not buy an EV in 2029-2030?

Our poloman can then easily go 500-550 kilometers in a single charge in his 30 lakh EV.

Or perhaps, a plug-in hybrid today at 30 lakhs with 50 kilometers battery only range. I feel this is the best option for Indians for the next 5-6 years. Perfect for city use and no range anxiety for that odd weekend trip.

By the way, Toyota is claiming to bring a 1000+ kilometers range car by 2027. What about that? Perhaps, a 30 lakh Toyota Hyryder with 1000 km range in 2030!

[SKC-auto]

Originally Posted by Chrome6Boy

We made a trip to Hyderabad from Chennai last year in the ZS EV. It was a 12 hour trip and we made stops for food and charging on the way.
However we did encounter chargers which were inoperative due to power cuts etc or more than one car waiting to be charged (this adds hours to your trip).
If we had made the trip in an ICE it would have been more expensive and more tiring.

I read about your trip to Hyderabad, the charging infra is inadequate, as I said previously the charging infra needs to increase atleast 200 times. One or two plugs at each station is not enough, we need atleast 20 plugs.

Without early adopters like yourself, who will build charging stations? most of the concerns here are about inadequate charging infra not about the car.

Doing a roadtrip for more than 12 hours is different to driving continously for 12 hours, only very few people do 12 hours of continuous driving without break. EVs definitely cannot do, even if tech improves they should not be designed for this use case, bigger batteries means more resources and weight and wasteful.

The question is did you do your Chennai-Sringeri trip without a stop? With adequate infra travelling by EVs also does notneed any planning.

[m8002?]

This thread is taking some interesting twists and turns.

One question to all those who have the EVs. Would you have bought them if they don't have the ability to charge from a 15A socket at home or no charging facility at office? Basically you need to charge only at an external dedicated charging station or petrol bunk offering charging?

Is a 300km range good when you spend 45 min every 5 to 10 days - that is if you are lucky and the gun is free. If not wait for more.

[Lobogris]

Originally Posted by poloman

For people like me who drive 10-12 hours on long drives, the comfortable range is 600-700Km on a single charge. Not many EVs even today can't guarantee such a range. Most people buy EVs only for city use..

So you can still drive those 600 kms. Just add about 45 minutes for charging and you can have lunch or dinner during that time. You only need to do such trips a couple of times a year. So an extra hour spent twice a year is minor compared to the benefits one derives the rest of the year. There are multiple and redundant charging options on most main routes. Demanding a charging point at each parking spot in every restaurant is like demanding a petrol pump nozzle at each parking spot. Just like you have to look for a petrol station, you can just as easily plan a charging stop on your route. Yes, there might be 500 petrol stations and just 20 charging stations but you only need one of each. I have never ever had any issues with charging or any range anxiety with my ZS EV across the country.

[electric_eel]

Originally Posted by Lobogris

So you can still drive those 600 kms. Just add about 45 minutes for charging and you can have lunch or dinner during that time. You only need to do such trips a couple of times a year. So an extra hour spent twice a year is minor compared to the benefits one derives the rest of the year. There are multiple and redundant charging options on most main routes.

There is one point that not many non-EV users realise. If there are 100 ICE cars they all need to go to the petrol pump to get their fuel. On the other hand if there are 100 EVs hardly one or two might need to go to the fast charger. Most of the time these will be home charged.

The other big point is the fact that electricity is ubiquitous (unlike petrol) and all one needs to fuel up is a humble 16 Amps plug point. This is the killer feature of a BEV and for this reason alone I think the real revolution that will bring the EVs into their elements is the slow charging network --- imagine all parking lot, hotels, offices, parks, and even the humble electric posts (see

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzutyXCWyqo

) providing you with a slow charging point. The writing is on the wall for ICE cars actually and no amount of lobbying is going to prevent the inevitable.

[aim120]

Car makers should utilize the Indian 400v 3 phase advantage that North America and Japan lacks (unless its a Industrial building). Most restaurants and buildings, even a agricultural pump set have three phase power transmission lines coming in.

The Type 2 connector allows a max of 22kw charging speed in AC. So car makers will need to add two more 7.2kw on board charging circuit in each car as a option. This way they can charge from any electric pole.
Even the car that is connected to DC fast charger with multiple guns, they can disconnect the relay for DC and switch over to AC charging for the remaining 80% to 100%, this is for car owners who insist to charge to 100% or people who do not remove the charge gun after its completed.

[raghukodali]

It is not the point of the range. Even ICE cars have a limited range and no ICE car can do 1000km in one go. Most of the ICE cars have a range of somewhere between 300km to 600km in one tankful.

The problem is how fast can you get from empty to full. An ICE car takes about 5 min to go from empty to Full. An EV takes a few hours. So even if we have as many charging points as we have petrol pumps, it is still not going to work. There will be long queues. That I think is the problem with EVs. I don't mind an EV range of 200km. But I want the charging to be done in 5-10 mins (Dreaming I guess ).

[SKC-auto]

Originally Posted by aim120

Even the car that is connected to DC fast charger with multiple guns, they can disconnect the relay for DC and switch over to AC charging for the remaining 80% to 100%, this is for car owners who insist to charge to 100% or people who do not remove the charge gun after its completed.

Any particular advantage of having AC to DC conversion happening inside the car over the same thing happening at the charger?

Originally Posted by raghukodali

The problem is how fast can you get from empty to full. An ICE car takes about 5 min to go from empty to Full. An EV takes a few hours. So even if we have as many charging points as we have petrol pumps, it is still not going to work. There will be long queues. That I think is the problem with EVs. I don't mind an EV range of 200km. But I want the charging to be done in 5-10 mins (Dreaming I guess ).

As @electic_eel explained, if there are 1lakh ICE cars, and each car is used for 30kms/day, each one of them has to go to a petrol station for fuel in a months time, if there are 1lakh EVs, and each car used for 30kms/day, we don't need any fast charging stations because they get charged in the basement itself.

We only need to worry about cars going above 200-300kms in a day, these cars need fast chargers. Except for long holiday weekends the number of cars doing more than 200-300kms is very less. We don't need as many chargers as petrol pumps.

We need more reliable chargers, also if we have 50 plugs at one charging station, even if each car takes 50mins to charge, we have a station which can cater 1car/min, all the cars do not start and end charging at same time, not a long queue.

EVs does not take few hours to charge, they only need to charge for few minutes, no one cares if it charges for several hours at home charging.

The biggest problem today with EVs is charging in apartments, most new apartments are getting individual charging points at there parking spaces, something to be solved for older apartments.

[Burgman_tales]

Originally Posted by sri_tesla

There is a silent revolution already happening Indian 3-wheeler market. EVs account for more than 50% of sales in 3-wheelers already.

Is there a source on this ? Seems difficult to believe. Or is it based on the Mahindra/Piaggio numbers you gave?

[ashis89]

Originally Posted by SKC-auto

As @electic_eel explained, if there are 1lakh ICE cars, and each car is used for 30kms/day, each one of them has to go to a petrol station for fuel in a months time, if there are 1lakh EVs, and each car used for 30kms/day, we don't need any fast charging stations because they get charged in the basement itself.

We only need to worry about cars going above 200-300kms in a day, these cars need fast chargers. Except for long holiday weekends the number of cars doing more than 200-300kms is very less. We don't need as many chargers as petrol pumps.

If all cars are to become EVs then we need to account for:

- cabs which do 200+ kms a day and given their counts, the number of fast chargers needed will be very high (akin to long queues at gas stations)

- several private cars without proper basement parking and hence, access to a secure charging setup

- additional travel time while looking for and waiting at charging stations during those 300+ kms trips

- additional power need of 150-200 units per household assuming 1000 km running per month

It doesn’t appear that simple to me as EV grows or is enforced.

[SKC-auto]

Originally Posted by ashis89

If all cars are to become EVs then we need to account for:
.

Building infra is not an easy task, but also not as difficult as building a 1000km expressway with all the effort for acquiring 1000s of acres of land.