India to order taxi aggregators like Uber, Ola to go electric
in.reuters.com
in.reuters.com
* Indian car companies do not have electric cars (a real car can go for atleast 200kms a charge/refill).
* A car factory(even non-electric) would take atleast 5 years to start churning cars.
* Even in that case, it will have to import 40% of the cost ie batteries as India cannot make them. If it starts today, it can in 10 years.
* Import duties of fully assembled, SKD and CKD electric cars is very high makes them uncompetitive to petrol/diesel cars.
* Direct importing is not viable as it requires certification.
* 60% of India's electric supply is coal based.
And to top it;
* Upto 50% of pollution a car will cause is done during production of the car ie before even a kilometre has been driven. Replacing lots of good working cars from the street is not environment friendly.
Even if that number is right, I would think that Uber/Ola cars have higher after-production emissions due to them being driven all day and being driven in city settings (as opposed to on a highway where cars are more efficient.)
The point that many people make: "* Upto 50% of pollution a car will cause is done during production of the car ie before even a kilometre has been driven. Replacing lots of good working cars from the street is not environment friendly."
It is not just overall pollution, but where and how it is done that it is important. There is a huge difference between controlled pollution, from a factory away from large cities, and thousands of cars spewing emissions right into the core of urban centers. The second would cause more direct health issues and potentially deaths and overall unpleasantness.
Please lookup charts of air pollution in the world, there are multiple smaller cities of India which are manufacturing hubs and on the list.
There is nothing called controlled pollution. And even if there is a technical feasibility like Carbon Capture and Storage it is not enforced.
Coal is not good for the climate, but coal-fired electricity using best available emissions control technology is far, far better for public health and air quality than internal combustion vehicles.
You're completely wrong. This may be the case for a weekend vehicle that is sent to the junkyard before you put 30,000 km on it, but is 100% wrong for a taxi, that drives >300,000 miles over its life.
It takes 6-12 tonnes of CO2e to produce a car. [1]
Taking 35 mpg, every 10,000 miles driven is 285 gallons of gasoline. 1 gallon of gasoline produces ~8.9 kg of CO2e. That's 2.5 tonnes per 10,000 miles driven.
After 50,000 miles driven, the typical car breaks even with its manufacturing emissions.
The average taxi (in NYC) puts on 70,000 miles. Per YEAR. [2] In a single year, it's fuel emissions exceed manufacturing emissions.
If you want good return-on-investment, taxis are the first vehicles we should be regulating. They drive a lot more than the average car.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/green-living-blog/20...
[2] https://www.quora.com/How-many-miles-does-a-NYC-taxi-do-in-i...
Indian taxis/cars on Indian roads do worse.
India's electric market is 60% coal.
"If you want good return-on-investment, taxis are the first vehicles we should be regulating. They drive a lot more than the average car." - Who is the you here? The car driver who is trying to make ends meet?
How much more? Sources, please. The internet tells me that adding an 85 KWH battery in a Tesla adds ~1 tonne of CO2e. [1]
Tesla, as a whole (Which includes non-manufacturing, but does not include the carbon cost, of say, smelting the steel that went into their cars, or Panasonic manufacturing their batteries), produced ~300,000 tonnes of CO2e in 2018. They shipped ~250,000 vehicles in 2018.[2]
Bloomberg claims something completely different, but doesn't provide any concrete numbers. [3] The study it seems to cite is [4], which claims that a Tesla's battery is ~15 tonnes of CO2e, if manufactured in a factory powered by 50% coal power. There seem to be no other studies on the subject.
Panasonic, which manufactures Tesla batteries, is doing some work to make their batteries carbon neutral [5][6]. It's unclear how much volume this factory produces, and what the emissions of their other factories are.
> Indian taxis/cars on Indian roads do worse.
This also means that the existing ICE taxis don't have a long prospective life, and at least 40% of them are due to be replaced by 2026. It's why this legislature is coming into play in 2026, and not in 2020.
> India's electric market is 60% coal.
Thanks to Carnot efficiency, even if your electric car is powered by a coal plant, it is still more carbon efficient than powering it with gasoline. Your V6 engine doesn't reach the temperature differential that utility coal plants do. Electric vehicles also have near-zero-cost regenerative breaking, which increases waste energy, that would otherwise go into heating brakes in a non-hybrid ICE.
> Who is the you here?
Someone who is comparing the environmental benefit to the monetary cost of switching from ICE to electric. You get a lot more reductions, for the same dollar spent, from electrifying taxis, then from electrifying heavily-used personal vehicles. You get more reductions from electrifying heavily-used personal vehicles, then lightly-used weekend vehicles.
Pick the lowest-hanging fruit first.
[1] https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Ska839...
[2] https://www.environmentalleader.com/2019/04/tesla-emissions-...
[3] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-16/the-dirt-...
[4] https://www.thegwpf.com/new-study-large-co2-emissions-from-b...
[5] https://www.panasonic.com/global/consumer/battery/primary_ba...
[6] https://www.panasonic-batteries.com/en/news/panasonic-enviro...
I am not against electric cars, I want them. I am against the idea to replace cars which have already contributed to significant pollution being removed from road.
The lowest hanging fruit for me is to get US and other top polluters to reduce pollution. India and China are doing good already as they are increasing more green cover. The reality is the India car drivers cannot afford the cheaper electric cars, forget about Tesla.
No, you don't get to go ahead and do that. The burden is on you to provide evidence for your claim, not on the person you are talking to.
> I am against the idea to replace cars which have already contributed to significant pollution being removed from road.
Didn't you say that taxis in India don't last as long as they do in the West? If so, won't it be possible to electrify 40% of them by 2026, through natural attrition? The whole point of this law is to give a heads-up on a multi-year process.
> The lowest hanging fruit for me is to get US and other top polluters to reduce pollution.
Agreed. The West has had modest per-capita pollution reductions, but needs to go much further then that. As does China. (It's overall per-capita pollution has matched that of the European Union. If you look at its urban areas, alone, they pollute just as much, per-capita, as the US.)
China is no longer a developing country. It's a 350-million person developed country, with all the same carbon footprint as any western economy, sitting on top of a 1-billion person developing country.
> India and China are doing good already as they are increasing more green cover
Increasing green cover isn't anywhere close to enough. If we tore down every city, uprooted every field, and covered the entire planet with trees, we'd offset only a few years of global emissions.
There is always load shedding going for every day 2 hours in a row.
It's really hard to live there, specially if you own a house then you need to install generators or backup in some other way.
India needs more nuclear power plans.
And Indian government should be promising 24/7 electricity in every town with more than 1lakh population atleast then they can think about "EVs".
Today there isn't enough power for air conditioning which is growing demand as the temepture sours.
This is generally the reason why most legislation of this type tries to dictate new car sales rather than actual usage. That route would yield slower results, but it is a more efficient approach.
That said, we also need to keep in mind that these electric cars aren't going to be replacing 5 year old vehicles. The strong secondary market allows those used cars to flow down market to push out much older and lower quality vehicles. Those low quality cars are also likely the worse polluters. Think of the Cash For Clunkers program. That was a failure on many levels, but one of the successes was modernizing some of the vehicles on the road which led to both better fuel economy and safety (although I should note that other aspects of the program had negative environmental impacts that might have made the program a net negative overall).
China has shown the way to do the transfer. Super high taxes for registration of a petrol/diesel car and free registration for an electric one. Build cars at home and subsidise its components.
No hand-waving required. Just make it more affordable. Let capitalism finish the job.
Pedantic, but Electric cars _are_ "real cars" as much as gas/diesel cars are.
Also to the parent’s point about self driving cars as part of Uber’s strategy, while totally valid, I really can’t imagine autonomous vehicles working in the places I’ve been in India. I’ve had drivers hit traffic jams and just literally turn around and drive into oncoming traffic for a while. It’s pretty impressive how traffic flows there — I can’t imagine an autonomous car figuring out how to do it.
>* 60% of India's electric supply is coal based.
The long-term plan is that this all be replaced with non-polluting sources of electricity. But I am assuming you already knew that.
Now what I want to ask you is, if electric cars are a bad idea for reducing co2 pollution, what would you recommend? Or is it your position that anthropogenic climate change is a hoax, and we should just stay on fossil fuels?
Replacing new and working oil cars with new electric cars in a short timeline is a poor decision which is far off from reality.
HN threads are for healthy discussions and I would not expect a solution to climate change here.
Your language is aggressive & attacks me personally and I am not going to respond further.
There are some electric cars already available or ready to launch (videos available in YouTube): Mahindra e2o, Mahindra eVerito, Tata Tigor, Tata Altroz.
These are some of the electric cars arriving in India this year (at least 11 models): Hyundai Kona, MG ezs, WagonR Electric, Tata Altroz, Tata Nexon, Mahindra eKUV100, Nissan Leaf, Renault Zoe.
1. "Import duties are high", "Direct import is not viable" - it's the govt we are talking about. They'll HAVE to ease the import to make it work.
2. Vehicles age; and they break down faster on indian roads. Current vehicles will eventually expire and open up space for electrics. no one is going to ask you to smash a new car.
1. Even the top courts in India have questioned the government on it but the government has no answer. I am not sure what information you have that you can emphasise that it has to. There is no political/public pressure only a marketing one.
2. Exactly! But enforcing of shorter deadlines by government is not going to help anyone and result in a few outrages by the road by the drivers and forgotten by everyone by the next news cycle.
* Everyone knows Uber and Ola don't own their fleet so who'll be accountable?
* In Bangalore, Ola was banned for a month or so for a policy violation, only to be revoked just in 24 hours citing Public / Traffic / Driver's livelihood.
* Uber and Ola drivers in cities like Bangalore are currently not even getting time for their food (lunch) and for them to sit aside and recharge the car seems another big 'would they ?'
* Any news on Public Policy reg. Internet companies hit front page.
Why not the government make better Public transport system? Why don't they increase the frequency of Government Bus ? Why don't they electrify Public transport?
None of these would hail the Government as Elon Musk ish visionary other than this one.
They don't own the fleet. But if the current regulation hits the books they cannot afford to lose their entire fleet as there is competition in the market(although barely). This is not that simple that the entire burden would be shifted on the drivers. I think what would happen is Uber/Ola would subsidize the drivers(thereby sharing the transitioning costs) to move to an electric motors.
Don't they require a modern car of a minimum size ? Just add more requirements.
Who says so? Have you read about tie-up with Tata for EV ? https://www.indiatimes.com/auto/current/tata-nano-electric-m...
Try to understand ground reality before making false claims.
Btw, elections over just ~15 days back, if this just PR stunt, it makes more sense announce it during 7 week long election not after that.
The Seattle airport requires that ridershare drivers drive cars that get mileage >= 45mpg, and every Uber/Lyft car I've seen picking up at Sea-Tac is a hybrid (almost all Priuses).
So putting car requirements on Uber can be effective even though they don't own their own cars.
https://airportimprovement.com/article/sea-tac-establishes-e...
This article has a list of all the states that are soing trial runs along with the bus manufacturer's name:
https://www.news18.com/news/auto/modi-governments-big-electr...
Centre seeks proposals for 5,000 electric buses: https://m.economictimes.com/industry/auto/auto-news/centre-s...
BMTC (Bengaluru) working on plan to buy 300 electric buses: https://m.economictimes.com/industry/transportation/roadways...
>After Goa and Delhi, Kerala government has joined the race to dip from Centre’s `4,500-crore FAME-2 ( Faster Adoption & Manufacturing of Electric Vehicles) subsidy pool. The state’s public transport entity KSRTC has floated tenders to lease 1,500 electric buses for 10 years.
https://www.financialexpress.com/industry/kerala-floats-e-bu...
Both are not mutually exclusive. Metro systems and roads are being built at break neck speed. High speed rail too.
Also many state govts have floated tenders for electric buses and for Pvt companies to start electric bus services for eg Tamilnadu.
Do they just provide incentives for drivers to buy electric vehicles? Or is the government actually expecting them to put company-owned electric vehicles on the streets?
They partner with companies owning fleets who rent them to drivers at a low-ish cost. It seems entirely reasonable to put restrictions on the 'fleet'.
Even a significant % of traditional taxis don’t own the cars. The taxi drivers are ‘brokers’ who buy and maintain the vehicles and make a deal with the taxi companies for business (branding, debit/credit card machines, running the phones, etc).
Uber would have to require most new cars from drivers they hire to be electric in order to accomplish this. Otherwise they’ll be forced to get into the fleet buying/maintenance business.
‘Surge’ pricing already exists for this reason. Which will be good for electric car owners and Uber, bad for the average consumer rider who will pay higher fees and drivers who can’t afford an electric vehicle will be out of work.
But those same people who call for this type of policy were already outraged at the idea of surge pricing and the service being more exclusive to the middle class and wealthy. I wouldn’t be surprised if this amplifies that. Not only for riders but also for the poor drivers who get excluded because they can’t afford a new electric car.
Of course this policy is a bit of a gamble that those 4dr electric cars will be feasible and economical for your average Uber driver to own. It’s possible costs will be similar in 5yrs and won’t add too much expenses which will roll down hill.
Not in India. The cars operated (usually now owned) by Uber/Ola drivers are considered high end cars and are loaned to the drivers by a cottage industry of agencies which take a cut of the fare (not sure if that cut comes from Uber's side or the driver's share).
Why is this obvious? If the composition of their fleets is not their business why is it clear that the way they manage their fleets is? I would actually assume that there are probably loads of regulations that already govern the ways Uber can manage its fleet?
It will be up to whoever is working on their platforms to procure EVs, and with India’s lack of developed EV production capacity and super high tariffs on imports, this goal completely unworkable by the deadline put forth.
Also, they'd likely want to pay EV drivers more, to create the correct incentives to get enough EV vehicles into their "fleet".
This means not only are Uber/Lyft not acquiring any drivers (or just signing up a tiny percentage that have EVs) while they lose a lot of their existing drivers.
These conditions would need to be imposed on taxis as well, for maximal effect. Grandfather in existing taxis, and then past a certain date, new taxis must be EVs.
And your take on the ACA is quite off; it's given healthcare to many more people than previously had.
Guaranteeing and publicizing a better rev share for EVs could drive adoption, although slowly. For quicker adoption, they could set up a wait list for drivers with non-EVs and tell the drivers they can skip the line if they get an EV. For every two EV drivers that sign up, they can also let in three non-EV drivers. When a non-EV driver quits, they reduce their EV deficit; when an EV driver quits, their EV deficit increases.
And use that tax pool to create programs for acquiring EVs (business or otherwise).
You can even add an exemption to offset the start period by a year or two for cars bought within a year to avoid screwing over people who just invested in a new car for this purpose.
A 1% tax isn't going to help if EVs are twice as expensive, whereas in 20 years time where hopefully EVs are approaching cost parity a 20% tax shouldn't be needed.
But on the other hand you want to broadcast to everyone that in the medium term your taxi will need to be electric, so plan accordingly. Taxes are hard!
You guys need to understand the impacts of the policies you recommend, because this is why people are against climate change efforts so vigorously.
Around here we already have a law that any taxi drivers (Uber and others included) cannot use a car older than 5 years.
Adjust conditions as necessary so that you hit your target (while also trying to minimize service disruption).
Because Uber drivers can't make money if they can't accept jobs, this creates an incentive for drivers to have an electric vehicle. They can get jobs others can't.
Eventually, the market should even work out the correct pricing. There's already a mechanism to pay more when drivers are in short supply. If the supply gets restricted because gasoline cars are sometimes ineligible, compensation has to go up (assuming Uber doesn't want to make customers wait forever for a ride).
Since this is primarily aimed at foreign companies operating in India, may be there could be some success, unless they bribe out of this.
https://www.economist.com/asia/2018/09/27/indias-government-...
Battery Mini-Riksaw are already dominating many of the small towns in India right now. Registration for Diesel Tri-wheelers is already stopped in some capital cities. Petrol may be on the way out too within 5 years.
For example, if the U.S. required half of all cars sold be EV, then there would be no cars available to buy for 2-3 years just to ramp up production alone. Millions of jobs lost during that time too.
>EV sales in India grew three-fold to 3,600 in the year ended March but still account for about 0.1% of the 3.3 million diesel and gasoline cars sold in the country over the period, industry data showed. China's electric car sales, meanwhile, rose 62% in 2018 to 1.3 million vehicles.
>Motorcycles and scooters sold for commercial purposes, like food delivery or for use by e-commerce companies, will also need to be electric from April 2023, the person added.
>Its Ola Electric Mobility unit in March raised ₹400 crore ($58 million) from investors including venture capital fund Tiger Global and Matrix Partners.
>It also raised $300 million from Hyundai Motor and Kia Motors and formed a strategic partnership with the South Korean duo to help build India-specific EVs.
https://www.livemint.com/politics/policy/india-set-to-order-...
India's car policies will make this very difficult.
Right now the "made in India" car restrictions means that India doesn't share car infrastructure with the rest of the world. From what a local was telling me, car manufacturers typically transfer their tooling from old product lines in other parts of the world when assembly lines are re-tooled to build cheaper India only vehicles.
Thankfully, the big cities are so congested that the older model cars with older model safety systems, but this approach won't work with EVs, which are not yet mainstream in the rest of the world.
My guess is that a modern version of a tuk-tuk would be ideal, but battery production is going to be a very big problem for this. India has the 3rd largest automobile market and a low level of vehicle adoption, but until they fix infrastructure, I don't see it happening.
Otherlab founder Saul Griffith has a great analysis about why electrifying cars and more of our technology is so necessary in the US here: https://medium.com/otherlab-news/decarbonization-and-gnd-b8d...
> "Without changing the size of our homes, or our cars, or fundamentally changing the fabric of our lives, a fully electrified energy economy using non-carbon fuel sources would require less than half of the total amount of energy we use today."
Your next car should be electric.
Yes it's a PR campaign, elections may be over but reelected government has to show that its better than past and what better way to make empty promises, which cost nothing.
Every point made by ShirsenduK is to the mark about conditions in India.
https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/28/ola-ev-business-ola-electr...
On top of that it's a lot of mechanisms to add for not adding much space above a roof mounted panel.
For example: 2 square meter panel x 1000 = 2000 x 0.20 (20% efficiency panel) = 400. 400 x 5 hours of sun hours = 2000 Watt hours per day. [ibid]
In 2012, the EPA range for the 60 kWh battery pack model was 208 mi (335 km) and the 85 kWh battery was 265 miles (426 km). [2]
A Tesla gets about 3.5 miles per kWh, so you would be able to get about 7 miles of driving distance per day (5 hours of sunlight) of charging.
Ref:
[1] https://www.theecoexperts.co.uk/solar-panels/how-much-electr...
For ex: Why does this article have to show a picture of a political rally ?
But given the age of India's electricity infrastructure and the huge challenges, this initiative would definitely present large challenges. The good news is that there is political will and a general absence of politically powerful retrograde lobbies to stop this from happening if tried sincerely.
Also.. most of the ubers (aka taxis) that I was in were suzuki Wagon Rs.
India is faaar from any electic car infrastructure. Like another comment said above, it's purely a PR move by the govt.
When the government does something concrete to boost the infrastructure, I will be the first to applaud.
Yeah building roads and highways at record pace are not concrete enough to boost infrastructure right?
https://www.businesstoday.in/sectors/infra/modi-government-c...
"So far, the incumbent government has constructed a total of 28,531 km national highways since FY 2014-15, contrasting with 16,505 km by the previous government up to FY 2013-14, a clear gain of an astounding 12,026 kms, the Financial Express reported."
Maybe this was interpreted literally...?
Either ways, I don't see how the Government can help in this! Isn't this the prerogative of the companies manufacturing their EV to setup? The only place where Government can help is providing land and electric power for these charging stations. That should not be a big deal.