Electric Mobility in India – A Hope for Better Future!

Electric Mobility in India – A Hope for Better Future!
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The transport sector is a significant and growing contributor to spiking air pollution in India. In 2015, transportation tailpipe emissions attributed for 1,800 premature deaths in New Delhi. Electric mobility solutions are essential to reducing emissions from the transport sector, both for-

  • Air pollution
  • Climate change

The New Delhi EV policy aims to have 25% of all vehicles sold in Delhi to be electric by 2024. The New Delhi EV policy is a direct response to the staggering air pollution levels in the city. The EV policy highlights programs for two-wheelers, shared transport vehicles, and commercial vehicles. New Delhi joins over 10 states working on electric mobility policies. Key states of Gujarat and Telangana have yet to release their policies, even discussions at the highest levels and several stakeholder consultations have been held by the government along with knowledge partners NRDC along with partners the Administrative Staff College of India (ASCI) and the Gujarat Energy Research and Management Institute (GERMI).

During the Auto Expo 2020, Indian automobile manufacturers displayed their best EV options in all classes—from affordable to luxury including various vehicle categories like two wheelers, cars and buses. Domestic brands, such as the Tata Altroz and Mahindra eKUV100m, to global brands, such as Renault City K-ZE, MG Marvel X and Kia Soul EV showcased their latest EV models.

Utilities and key experts recently came together for the “Distribution Utility Forum”, hosted by the Shakti Sustainable Energy Foundation and The Energy and Resource Institute (TERI) in February in Bangalore. Utilities are central to advancing electric mobility given their vital role in building out the charging infrastructure needed to support the EV market.

The forum brought together CEOs and other senior management of distribution utilities across India to sharing experiences, views, and solutions on electric mobility challenge facing the distribution sector. NRDC along with partners ASCI and GERMI, presented our work on a sustainable business models for charging infrastructure and paper on siting approaches with practices from the United States, China and elsewhere.

By 2025, more than 50% of vehicle sales in Europe will be EVs. Though the Indian Government laid out a broad plan in 2013 with the ‘National Electric Mobility Mission Plan (NEMMP) 2020.

The second phase aims at boosting electric mobility and increasing the number of electric vehicles in commercial fleets. This includes encouragement for buses using EV technology, electric, plug-in hybrid, and strong hybrid four-wheelers as well as electric three-wheelers including e-rickshaws and electric two-wheelers and also focuses on the establishment of charging infrastructure across multiple cities.

The union government is trying to encourage the adoption of electric mobility to reduce the dependency on crude oil imports and bring down pollution across the cities. With its cleaner carbon footprint and reduced localised pollution, e-mobility can serve as a solution.

The electricity cost to charge an EV averages to a third of the price of petrol per kilometre. Also, vehicles running on e-mobility solutions contain fewer components than a conventional petrol/diesel car providing easier servicing and cheaper maintenance compared to their fossil fuel counterparts. With greater overall efficiency, the average amount of energy savings goes to 40% for an electric vehicle compared to a traditional fuel engine vehicle.

Achieving 15% of electric vehicles within the next 5 years and 30% electric vehicles by 2030 on Indian roads is still challenging!

Range anxiety continues to be a major deterrent in EV adoption along with the challenge in achieving the convenience and the ease of use offered by traditional fossil-fuel-based vehicles. High initial cost, lack of meticulous charging infrastructure, unavailability of an electricity grid system capable of meeting the demands of charging multiple EVs at the same time, as well as a limited public awareness regarding the benefits of e-mobility may hinder the widespread adoption of this technology.

 

A target on emerging markets such as Africa, Middle East, Latin America and South Asia with low-cost EVs have opened up a plethora of opportunities for car manufacturers. Strategies like large-scale public procurement of electric vehicles and the possibilities of delinking the cost of batteries from the cost of vehicles using swappable batteries can promote early adopters for e-mobility.

The e-rickshaws or electric three-wheelers, with their greater affordability, fewer range-related issues due to their defined routes make them adoption-friendly in terms of short-distance commutes as well as last-mile connectivity.

Keeping in mind the extensive R&D requirement for the design, development, and validation of pure EV/Hybrid Vehicle ECUs from two-wheelers to shared mobility to commercial trucks, Tata Elxsi has its very own lab-based test house solution called e-MOBILITY, for the validation of EVs and Hybrid ECUs at component, system and vehicle level.

What measures are being taken to manage the increase in load that will be caused by an increase in electric vehicles?

The Indian government is promoting two important measures to manage the EV charging load. The first measure promotes the use of renewable energy to charge electric vehicles, which will reduce the load on transmission and distribution network. Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Hybrid and Electric Vehicles (FAME II) links renewable energy sources with electric vehicle charging infrastructure. However, the Government has not yet provided any additional incentives for renewable energy powered charging stations.

The second measure includes introducing Time of Day (ToD) charge for EV charging. A ToD charge aims at shifting the increase in electric load/demand due to EV charging needs away from peak hours to non-peak hours (like during night time) through incentives for night-time charging. This helps in reducing the expected peak power demand and helps manage the load on the electric grid. A few states like Telangana and Delhi have already introduced ToD charges for electric vehicles by reducing the price of electricity for EV charging at non-peak hours.

Central Electricity Authority (CEA) is also planning to come out with a guideline for distribution utilities on setting ToD chargers for EVs. Vehicle-to-grid integration (VGI) studies can be another measure that can be undertaken in the future to manage the increase in load due to electric vehicles. VGI is a system in which plug-in electric vehicles can communicate with the power grid by either returning electricity to the grid or by varying their charging rate.

These are the steps taken/being taken by the government to encourage people to switch over to the electric vehicles in the country:

Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Electric Vehicles in India: Phase II (FAME-II) scheme was launched in April 2019 with total fund allocation of INR 10,000 crores (~1.4 billion USD) for 1.6 million EVs for 2019-22. FAME II incentivizes EV adoption for shared mobility in India. INR 1000 crore has been allocated for establishment of EV charging infrastructure.

Union Budget 2020 Incentives: the Government has proposed to hike customs duty on imported electric vehicles to boost indigenous manufacturing of EV components and vehicles.

Union Budget 2019 Incentives: Goods and Services Tax reduced from 12% to 5% on EVs and from 18% to 5% on charging infrastructure; oncome tax rebate of up to INR 1.5 lakhs (around USD 2,200) to consumers on interest paid on loans for EV purchase; customs duty exemptions on parts exclusively used in EVs (for example e-drive assembly, on-board charger, e-compressor, and charging gun).

Ministries have introduced complementary fiscal and non-fiscal incentives like green license plates, registration fee exemptions, road taxes waivers on EVs, EV charging as a service, tax-exempt buses, building bye laws to support EV charging.

States governments are providing a number of incentives like capital subsidies on EVs, exemption of State GST (SGST), road tax waivers, manufacturing incentives on land, energy, water etc.

Introduction of National Mission on Transformative Mobility and Battery Storage which provide incentives for setting up large scale indigenous battery manufacturing plants.

These are some of the very important and crucial measures to support electric mobility in India while also aiming to improve air quality, which India needs desperately at this stage.