[guptad42]

Originally Posted by rajshenoy

I think we are pretty sorted with respect to using EV for urban mobility as home charging will be sufficient for 90% people. I am hopeful green energy will pick up too (only way to meet the additional load of EVs on the grid)

Currently my concern is only on the highways. Even if 2-3% of highway vehicles become EV, our infrastructure would crumble for sure unless we scale our charging infrastructure accordingly (say 2% of our highway parking spots should get electrified for this) as more EV owners will contend to juice up their cars wherever they park for food or break.

Purely for this reason alone I am skeptical about EV for highways but my next office car will 100% be EV

We still have a lot of obstacles to home charging. In Apartments/Housing societies, there is a lot of nuisance from co-op housing society or association office bearers, and heroic effort needed by the EV owner in many cases. And colonies with on-street parking have their own problems installing chargers. Utilities, especially govt ones that rule most of the country, don't have money to invest in increasing load capacities of transformers and connected loads to homes/buildings for the additional demands of EV charging.

1. We need to reach a stage where new parking space in new construction or building renovation comes with wiring for 7.2KW AC charger, at least in top 20 cities in India. Or it can be 1 7.2KW point for every 2 parking spots. It'll be a very small change to the cost of the flat or house.

Owners can install a 3.3KW or 7.2KW charger when they buy an EV. And existing CHS/associations and utilities cannot have a right to deny or delay permission more than a week to install a private charger up to 7.2KW. They can only suggest where to route the wire to avoid a wiring mess across the whole parking lot.

2. People are worried about additional units of electricity from EV charging pushing them into higher slabs for power bills, raising the cost for household consumption as well. Some states have a separate green meters with better tariffs for EV charging, and this needs to be made universal.

3. Aim to shift all home EV charging to smart meters that let you do time of day rates. So off-peak cheap electricity at night (and solar afternoons) be used for EV charging. It will help the power grid as the additional power demand from EVs will not hit the peak generation constraints. Peak power is expensive for the electricity companies.

4. Utilities can put up paid 7-22KW level 2 AC chargers on streetlights, say 2 plugs per pole, especially in areas where street parking is common. Insist on automatic charge and pay, with bank/UPI accounts or nextags linked to the car being charged. No separate credit and payment hassles for the consumers, and it will improve revenue recovery for govt utilities.

I agree with your highway charging concerns, and it may need targeted policy and investment to solve. The so-called fast chargers on Indian highways are typically 50-60KW. This is a waste of money. We will need min 150KW DC fast chargers, and EV benefits like the 5% GST should also have a minimum fast charging capability specified to be eligible. Several EVs below 25Lacs in India have charging speeds in 20-30KW range. It leads to long charging times that are not sustainable.

Govt has hinted at a plan for some 8lac electric buses and charging infra for it. If these are 250-350KW chargers, it can be developed as a grid that can build additional capacity to offer for real fast charging to cars as well.

[heysac]

https://www.drive.com.au/news/toyota...ustion-engines

Toyota will continue to invest in ICE along with BEV and Hydrogen fuel cell engines!

Also, given the slowdown in BEV in the US, it seems electric is not going to dominate in India as well!

[shortbread]

Originally Posted by heysac

Also, given the slowdown in BEV in the US, it seems electric is not going to dominate in India as well!

Just to clarify, 1.2 million EVs were sold in the US in 2023, in Q4 EV sales grew by 40% YoY. That is despite the lack of affordable electric options in the US, the average transaction price of EVs is $50k, holding a $20k premium over regular cars.

In 2023, Tesla saw 22.6% YoY sales growth in the US, Toyota saw 15% sales growth. EV boom in the US continues despite the negative media barrage.

Originally Posted by heysac

https://www.drive.com.au/news/toyota...ustion-engines

Toyota will continue to invest in ICE along with BEV and Hydrogen fuel cell engines!

Hydrogen cars have been an absolute disaster, the two pumps in my city have closed down. It's a totally impractical and expensive technology to be used in cars. Not a single hydrogen car has found any market traction, which is disappointing considering Toyota launched a mass market hydrogen car a decade ago. It's not just the UK, Shell recently decided to shut all it's hydrogen pumps in California due to no demand.

Hydrogen is practical for big commercial vehicles. For cars they eat up tremendous amounts of space, not very powerful and very expensive to make. Hydrogen will find success in commercial applications, ZERO chance of success in PVs.

The only reason that Toyota keeps pushing hydrogen in my opinion is that they do not want to take the massive write-off associated with shutting down the operations, they keep spending tens of billions annually to keep the hydrogen business alive. Maybe this is loose change in Toyota's $200+ billion of debt, but the Japanese govt. provides free loans so who cares.

In the decade that they've made their Mirai hydrogen car, they've sold around 22k units, that's less than 2500 cars sold globally a year. Most of the cars are complementary or at heavily discounted lease deals. One positive for hydrogen cars in India is that Mr.Gadkari got one for free!

[V.Narayan]

Hydrogen has 3X the energy density of petrol. Good for hydrogen - roughly 123 megajoules/kg vs 43 megajoules/kg. But, but, but 1 kg of liquid hydrogen stored at minus 253 degrees Celsius occupies 4X the volume of petrol. add to that the cryogenic equipment and it is more like 6X of the volume needed. So, your hydrogen fuel tank needs a fourth of your car's volume to be transported. And don't forget the storage pressure of 700 atmospheres, yes 700. That is more than 1.5X the pressure at which the Titanic lies at the bottom of the ocean. I'm not sure I would like a pressurized cylinder at 700 atmospheres while driving around on bumpy roads where any lazy fool could hit me. The Soviets experimented with liquid hydrogen as a fuel using a modified Tupolev Tu-154 airliner. It flew. Only challenge was that the fuel tank took up so much volume there was limited space left for the payload.

[DRPSREDDY]

Technology is really at cross roads with newer technologies emerging!

Hydrogen has been the promising fuel of the future. But with higher price and absent hydrogen infrastructure, the widespread adoption has proved to be a significant obstacle. With Electric, Flex-fuel, CNG and Hybrids still fighting out with older fossil fuels, a new entrant emerge adding fuel to the fire.

Presenting the AMMONIA engine!!

The ammonia engine is said to reduce emissions by 90% and is claimed to be almost frozen in its design. Also Ammonia does not uses any carbon, hence the produced result from the combustion is only nitrogen and water molecules. This ammonia engine, besides possessing exceptional environmental qualities, is based on the development of existing manufacturing capabilities and, in many cases, uses the existing distribution networks. Availablity is not an issue and doesn't need chilled storage like the hydrogen. But the fuel needs to be 'manufactured' in factory and transported, unlike hydrogen that can be made at the same location, that is the filling stations.

The 2.0 liter non-platine engine was tested by Toyota and GAC and it produced 123 kw/h of power and 300 Nm of torque. The engine is still as the nascent stage of testing and results are still awaited but Toyota seems more confident. That seems to be the end of Hydrogen as storage, transportation and safety are still some of the parameters restricting it's use.

Originally Posted by ECONEWS

The engines that are based on an ammonia source use ammonia (NH3) as a fuel instead of the hydrocarbons that make up gasolin or diesel. Ammonia is a compound of one nitrogen atom and three hydrogen atoms and it can be made to work in two-stroke spark-ignition engines by small modifications.

The mechanism of the ammonia engine operation and burning of ammonia fuel is quite similar to a traditional gasoline engine. Likewise, liquid fuel that contains ammonia is introduced into the combustion chamber, then compressed and then sparked by the spark plug.

In ammonia even there are differences with regard to combustion properties in comparison with gasoline. This type of fuel has a higher auto-ignition point hence it is more difficult to ignite and burns longer than the others. For the gas phase engine to work effectively, is necessary to use higher compression ratios.

At the same time when NOx can be emmitted to some extent, the combustion emits no carbon source due to lack of carbon in ammonia. In conclusion, ammonia can be used for engines which use combustion the will be familiar to gasoline engines.

The new ammonia engine: 90% lower emissions and freezing temperatures

[digitalnirvana]

Read this on Reddit. The diagram illustrates the renewable energy input needed to power 1 MJ to the vehicle, for various powertrain options.

Source: https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/...351(24)00341-6

[youknowitbetter]

While I have not voted on fuel, I wanted to check the views of the fellow members of what will be future architecture of the cars. With EVs and Hybrids getting traction, will we see any transition in the design philosophy.

Ford Model T had a long bonnet but no (prominent) boot. This design is consistent with various vintage cars, which underwent a change with the launch of sedans, (flatbed) trucks etc. Most of these were designed around the requirement of space in the engine bay and for luggage.

In case of Hybrids, first few gens of Prius had a very distinct design, which I am guessing was in line with the internal technical requirement of placing an hybrid infrastructure.

But considering that EVs have a very different internal space requirement, what all can be considered. We already have seen (speaking strictly in Indian context), MG and Mahindra launching different designs.

Would love to be educated by others. Thanks