Electric Vehicle (EV)- The future is here

What are electric Vehicles (EV)?

Electric Vehicle, more popularly known as EV, are those vehicles which are partially or fully powered by Electric. Contrary to the widely used (Internal Combustion Engine) ICE vehicles, running on fossil fuels like Petrol or Diesel, they have battery from which they derive their power. 

What kinds of batteries are used?

Please do not think that the car is going to run on the same battery which is used in ICE car to glow headlight. EVs mostly used lithium-ion batteries which have greater longevity and are excellent at retaining energy. Also, they have high power to weight ratio which means they are relatively lighter compared to the energy they can supply. They have high energy efficiency, good high temperature performance and low self-discharge which is around 5% per month. Apart from Lithium-ion batteries, there are other batteries like Nickel-Metal Hydride batteries and Lead-acid batteries which have their own merits and demerits.

Why EV?

This is a good question and the most obvious question coming to our mind. For generations we are using Petrol or gasoline or Diesel for running cars, buses or trucks and then why suddenly we need a change? This change is mostly because of 3 reasons

• Fossil Fuel reserve of the earth is depleting, and the consumption rate is ever increasing: Fossil fuel takes millions of years to form and it can be used in hundreds of years. The rate at which we are consuming, we will run out of underground crude oil in another 40 years.
• Burning of petroleum increases Nitrogen pollution: Burning of fossil fuel releases nitrogen oxides into the atmosphere which causes smog and acid rain thus affecting breathing air along with polluting land and water bodies
• High demand of Petroleum leads to higher cost: With higher demand of petroleum products, the cost is also rising. Developed countries are spending trillions of dollars on Petroleum import.

In 2020 India spent 7.17 trillion INR on crude oil import. Adoption of EV will result in lesser dependency on crude oil and lesser pollution.

• Global Warming: As human steps forward, we need more and more speed. This drives the sale of more and more vehicles most of which are conventional IC Engine driven and contributes vastly to global warming. If you look at the chart taken from Data.GISS: GISS Surface Temperature Analysis (GISTEMP v4) (nasa.gov) website, we can see Earth’s surface temperature change. You will be shocked to see the speed at which temperature is increasing over the past 60 years compared to that before.

India is the 5^th most polluted country of the World in 2019. Out of the top 10 polluted cities, 6 cities are from India.

Courtesy : Data.GISS: GISS Surface Temperature Analysis (GISTEMP v4) (nasa.gov)

Benefits of EV – Why should I buy EV?

As everything as some pros and cons, so is EV. Here are the advantages of EV which will encourage us to go for Electric Vehicle.

1. Energy efficient

Efficiency is what everyone looks for in any machine or system and it is measured by output we get for the input we are giving to a system. In case of cars, the output is the power driving the wheel and input is the fuel. For petrol or gas engine, this efficiency is around 17% to 21% whereas the same is around 60% for EV.

2. Reduce Emission

EV is driven by power from battery. It is not burning oil and hence do not have tailpipe emission. Conversion of petrol and diesel vehicles to electric will help in reducing air pollution. This will reduce the emission of greenhouse gas (GHG) which is emitted by vehicles running on IC Engine.

3. Silent

Lack of combustion and mechanical drivetrain makes Electric Vehicle silent compared to vehicles running on IC Engine.

4. Less maintenance cost

EV has fewer moving parts compared to IC Engine. So, maintenance cost of Electric Vehicle is lesser than IC Engine driven vehicles.

Is it all good or any challenges with EV?

Along with the advantages described above, listing the challenges below.

Electric car batteries have shorter range and can travel up to 150 KM per recharge. Though some luxury model can run up to 300 miles per charge still it is difficult to use on long drive or any uphill journey where the car may run out of charge unless we have proper recharging facility available within this range. Considering the current infrastructure condition, we do not have enough charging station to support it.

1. Longer Recharge Time

Recharging the battery can take from 30 minutes to 8 hours depending on the power of charging station. So, if a car runs out of charge on your way, then it is too long time to wait for recharging even for the fastest charging station as of now.

2. Initial Investment is Steep

Initial investment of electric car is quite high. The battery pack for electric car is expensive and may need replacement multiple times within the lifetime of a car. Also setting up of charging station involves lot of cost.

3. Higher Cost of Battery

Lithium, which is needed for manufacturing batteries for EV, are not found in abundant in India. We have to import Lithium which incurs additional cost. Also it is found that the 40% of an EV’s price is contributed by battery cost which raises that question – what will happen if the battery is damaged in due course?

4. Recharge Point

Proper plan needs to be undertaken for setting up high power charging station. This involves new infrastructure development or may be usage of existing pumping station. But considering the time of charge, in case of large number of cars there can be congestion. So speed of charging and proximity of charging facility are something to work on.

Though we can see lot of drawbacks which stands in the way of adopting EV, but believe me, future is here. Experts are working on finding solution and doing a feasibility test to resolve these issues. Soon we can see the number of e-vehicles going up exponentially.