Hurdles on the path of changeover to Electric Vehicles

Hi folks, I present you yet another article written by my Dad, Shri. S. Muthukrishna Iyer on the feasibility of changeover to Electric powered vehicles for which lot of proposals are put forward by our Government. This article got published in a local community magazine in Trivandrum. Please go through this and bring in your views. Thanks.




Hurdles on the path of changeover to Electric Vehicles

By

S. Muthukrishna Iyer, Thiruvananthapuram

(1) Preface

Question: India government’s policy: ‘No sale of petrol/diesel fuelled 2/3 wheelers, cars, buses and trucks in our country after 2030’. Why so?

Answer: During winter months, air pollution is beyond habitable level in metros, particularly in Delhi. Reasons are categorized under 3 heads, namely, stub burning after harvest, dust from construction related activities and vehicular pollution.

For many years, CNG is used as fuel for some categories of vehicles in Delhi as per the directive of the Honorable Supreme Court of India. Another alternative, namely, allowing vehicles with odd/even numbers to ply on alternate days has also been tried out, however, no significant advantage was reported. Similar issues are experienced in other metros too.

As for history of electric traction for vehicles, most of India’s railway network has been electrified. Railway engines collect electricity instantaneously from overhead lines and generate motive power. Traction battery powered vehicles have been used in a very limited way in some areas. We have a car christened as “REVA” in market for over a decade; however, it did not become popular due to inherent disadvantages. In order that air pollution in metros is brought under control, government has been indicating plans to phase out petrol/diesel engine powered 2/3 wheelers, cars, buses and trucks by 2030. It has also been indicated that change over to electric vehicles could bring down our crude oil imports, and thereby result in savings in our valuable foreign exchange.

 However, a study by this author indicates that we shall face hurdles of varied nature on change over to traction battery powered vehicles.

(2) Media reports

·         All electric cars by 2030: On 27^th March 2016, Malayala Manorama daily published a report titled, ‘Govt. aims All Electric Cars by 2030’, based on a statement by the Union Minister of energy on our long term transportation policies

·         Only Electric 2 - wheelers may be sold in country after 2025: A report titled as above was published in the TOI news paper dated May 23, 2019. The following action plan was also announced:

Signaling a faster transition towards electric vehicles, the government is expected to mandate the sale of only electric 3 - wheelers after April 2023, while all new 2 - wheelers with engine capacity up to 150 CC driven out of show rooms may have to be powered by electricity from April 2025. The radical recommendations of a high level govt. panel aimed at reducing vehicular pollution of these two segments with an annual sale of over 2 Cr units account for more than three quarters of traffic on Indian roads. The move will not impact vehicular sales up to the cut off dates as they will continue to ply.

·       NITI Aayog’s road map; “Only EV’s to be sold after 2030” is the

Head line of a report in TOI dated 18^th June, 2019.

(3) Study

Question: In the beginning of this article we said that we need to face hurdles on the path of change over to traction battery powered vehicles in case we go in for their widespread use. What are they?

Answer:  I am highlighting the major ones.

·        Hurdles

Hurdle – 1 (Battery powered electric vehicles are inferior to petrol/diesel powered ones with respect to power and range)

Question: How do we justify the above statement?

Answer: Petrol/diesel oil powered 2/3/4 wheelers are being driven many hundreds of kilometers at a stretch using fuel stored in tanks, refueling taking only less than a minute. Also, the present day 2/3/4 wheelers accelerate to full speed in seconds, run at over 80 kmph speed if the road condition permits; also negotiate steep gradients with ease. Petrol/diesel fueled 2/3/4 wheelers are optimized w.r.t. their design, manufacturing, and are breakdown free; they allow uninterrupted 24 hour riding.

                                                                Whereas

Traction battery powered 2/3/4 – wheelers are fitted with heavy and voluminous batteries. On travelling for the specified range (say, 200 km) they need re – charging, for many hours. They generally have lower cruising speeds and face difficulty in negotiating steep gradients.

Hurdle – 2 (Traction battery powered electric vehicles are not suitable for uninterrupted long distance travels.)

Question: With petrol – auto rickshaw. I make a living. With ban on sale of petrol/diesel auto rickshaws by 2023, how to provide 24 hour service to customers?

Answer: Once the vehicle is on re – charging, evidently, the vehicle is not available for doing service to customers. The re – charging may have to be done once in two days.

Question: I frequently move on trips for around 200 kilometers a day using my bike. After 2023, I cannot make long trips with 2 – wheeler EV.  What do I do in this case?

Answer: You may need a stopover for re – charging.

Hurdle – 3 (User to incur higher expenditure compared to petrol fuelled auto rickshaw)

Question: I understand that the procurement price of an EV is at least double the price of a petrol/diesel fueled one. Is it so, and why?

Answer: Here over half the cost of vehicle is for battery. Battery and the remaining systems together cost over twice that of the presently used vehicles. Moreover, the traction battery which costs more than 60% of its procurement price has about 4 years life only and needs replacement at four year intervals. I also want to highlight here about a news paper report which indicated that a small electric car when brought to market is likely to cost around Rs 14 lakhs. This need be compared with the price of a petrol fueled car which is about Rs 4 – 5 lakhs.

Hurdle – 4 (Issues related to making battery in large numbers)

Question: How easy/difficult is making batteries used in EV’s in very large numbers?

Answer: The TOI news paper dated 13^th June, 2019 carried an article which highlights difficulties related to manufacture of Li – Fe Batteries for EV’s. They include:

·        Currently EV’s use lithium – iron batteries (LIBs); it is the limitations of LIBs that will prevent wide spread adoption of EV’s. LIBS are expensive and do not support long - range travel. Worse, raw materials for making LIBs are in short supply.

·         The battery used in a typical EV is a massive 500 kg pack consisting of hundreds of large lithium – iron cells that use metals such as lithium, cobalt, nickel and manganese. Lithium generates a flow of electrons and helps charge the battery, Cobalt prevents battery overheating. The problem is that world does not have enough of lithium or cobalt reserves needed to replace the current automobiles with EV’s.

Hurdle – 5 (Could face problems in Generating and supplying huge quantum of electricity demanded by EV’s)

Question: Presently I re - fuel my auto rickshaw from nearby petrol bunk in less than a minute. How and where do I get my electric auto rickshaw re – charged?

Answer: For clarity, I shall touch upon our re – fueling facility for petrol/diesel. We have gigantic oil refineries established at different regions of our country; they ensure that the crude is distilled into usable fuel forms. The nationwide distribution networks ensure their uninterrupted availability at bunks. This also includes our efforts for procurement of crude oil from sources all over the world..

Question: Till now, I have not seen any plan from governments/any other agencies for establishing country – wide electricity production facilities to capacities as demanded by the battery powered electric vehicles which we intend to bring on road 2023 on wards.

Answer: O.K. I accept, maybe we need to wait.

Question: Could we debate on electricity production facilities we could create for meeting the demand for charging the electric vehicles?

Answer: A look at data on electricity production facilities in our country as of now could throw some light on how to go about with our study on facilities for EV’s.

Table – 1, Electricity generating plants, category wise in MW (Wikipedia)

Date	Thermal	Nuclear	Hydro	Other renewable s	Sub total - renewable s	Total Installed capacity	% growth on yearly basis
March 1990	43764	1565	18307	-	18307	63636	9.89
March 1997	61010	2225	2`1658	902	22560	85795	4.94
March 2002	74429	2720	26269	1628	27897	105046	4.49
March 2007	86015	3900	34654	7760	42414	132329	5.19
March 2012	131603	4780	38990	24503	63493	199877	9.0
March 2017	218330	6780	44478	57260	101138	326841	10.31
March 2018	222906	6780	45293	69022	114315	344202	5.25
March 2019	226279	6780	45399	77641	123040	356100	3.52

Table – 2, Installed capacity and electricity generated annually.

Category of power plant	Installed capacity (MW)	Installed capacity (% total	Electricity generated (Gwh)	Electricity generated (% total)
Coal	200704	56.2	986591	75.9
Large hydro	45399	12.7	126123	9.7
Small hydro	4594	13.0	5056	0.4
Wind power	35815	10.0	52666	4.0
Solar	28677	8.0	25871	2.0
Nuclear	6780	1.9	38346	2.9
Bio mass	9269	2.6	15282	1.2

I am referring here the above data for analysis.

·         Installed capacity of coal based electric plants increased from 86,015 MW (2007) to 2,18,330 MW (2017); an increase of 1,32,315 MW over 10 years. This exemplary work done in augmenting the electricity generation capacity by opening up new coal mines and establishing thermal power plants during the period 2002 – 2017 was the reason for the shortfall in electricity supply in India vanishing altogether.

·         At the same time, during 2007 - 2017, increase in installed capacity of Large Hydro is only 9914 MW, indicating near saturation in capacity addition.

·         Capacity addition with respect to Nuclear reactors is small.

·         Capacity addition in terms of units of electricity produced by Wind electric plants is limited by factors, namely, the wind electricity generation potential as well as their low capacity factor (say, 20%). Capacity addition of solar electric plants is seriously limited by its very low capacity factor (say; 10%).

·         Traction battery charging loads belong to heavy duty category, which, cannot be met by solar electric systems.

Data available from the tables given above clearly indicates that we could create additional capacities demanded by EV’s by establishing coal based electric plants only.

The above finding is given as ‘food for thought’ by TOI news paper of 1^st July 2019 in its editorial page as ’Electric cars are coal powered cars’.

Hurdle – 6 (We may face serious issues related to battery charging infrastructure)

Question: While proposing changeover, planners might have thought that establishment of the charging infrastructure is likely to be simple affair. This study brings out serious hurdles; how?

Answer: A vehicle visiting a petrol bunk is resident at the bunk only for a minute or so. At the same time, when an EV enters a charging station, it receives the vehicle, lifts away the vehicle battery and places near charger. A charged replacement battery is fitted to the vehicle and the vehicle is back in service, this is the proposal. (It might be difficult to implement this process since if my vehicle has a new battery, I will not like to get an old one as replacement).

Conceptually, the charging involves pouring electrons into battery; however, unlike pouring petrol in to a storage tank, the electron pouring process takes 4 – 5 hours.

We all know that our petrol bunks are small places where in fuels are stored in tanks kept underground, and since the vehicle is resident only for a short time, no parking areas are needed at the bunks. Whereas, for charging traction battery powered vehicles, the battery which is heavy and voluminous has to be handled at the bunk using a crane, the same is kept in the premises of charging facility for many hours, charged and then given back. Assume that a petrol bunk caters to 2000 vehicles a day (vehicles are as small as a two wheeler, also as large as a city bus), a traction battery charging facility need to be as big as a play ground, wherein we have enough space to keep many hundreds of voluminous batteries, their individual chargers and the related electric systems under huge and covered hangers.

                                           

                                         Image borrowed from Google

                                

                               My dad, Shri S. Muthukrishna Iyer, seated leftmost in the front row wearing purple shirt.  This photo is from the recently concluded College of Engineering, Trivandrum (CET) batchmates reunion. 

                      

Hurdle 7: (We will be spending substantially higher quantum of energy for electric vehicles in the form of coal for providing the same service as the presently used ones)

Question: What is the implication of higher life time cost of battery powered vehicles compared to petrol/diesel fueled vehicles we are comfortably using now?

A: The above study has already brought out the fact that we shall be incurring substantially higher expenditure for EV’s from the year 2023 (E.g. Rs14 lakhs for an electric car compared to Rs 4 lakhs for a petrol car. In addition, we need to spend additionally for periodic replacement of the battery). It is well known that the cost of an item and the energy we use for its making are proportional. We also know that our energy sources for supporting these E.V. manufacturing activities are primarily finite coal and petroleum reserves. Therefore, changeover to EV’s is sure to deplete our precious fuel reserves sooner than later.

-          The End –