EV Challenges in India

 

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The world says, “Electric vehicles are the future”. Introduced more than 100 years ago, electric vehicles have seen rising popularity for their numerous benefits. It was around 1832 when Robert Anderson developed the first crude electric vehicle. However, it wasn’t till the 1870s or later that electric vehicles became a practical carrier.

While the world was enjoying electric vehicles and it benefits of reduced operating costs, fuel savings, and environmental concerns, India got its first electric vehicle in 1996 which was a three-wheeler invented by Scooter’s India Pvt Lt. It was named Vikram Safa. Today, almost all the major car manufacturers and brands like Tesla, Audi, Mercedes Benz, Hyundai, Chevrolet, BMW, and Renault are making ground-breaking electric vehicles.

During the early years, EVs did not do well in the market due to high costs, low speed, and short range. Therefore, the demand declined across the world. Their demand increased with the concern for the environment in the 21^st century when gas-powered vehicles emitted a lot of smoke and were considered very harmful to the environment.

Still, more electric cars were sold in China in 2021 compared to other countries. Why? The main reason was the availability of raw materials for making batteries. China is the major player in Lithium which is used in making batteries for EVs. Purchasing lithium was quite expensive for India and other countries, which increased the overall price of electric vehicles. However, now that many Indian start-ups are manufacturing Lithium, this has overcome the shortage and importing expensive material from China.

Many roadblocks have been preventing Indian customers to adopt Electric Vehicles. Overall, the challenges with electric vehicles were infinite due to inadequate charging networks, limited models in the market, uncertainty around the cost of the batteries, and weak consumer awareness. All these factors were impeding the accelerated growth of electric vehicles in India.

While most countries like Japan, Germany, the United States, and China are exceeding in their EV sales, India is still facing challenges in premium car sales due to the premium prices and lack of charging infrastructure. Though the sales of electric scooters and buses are expanding in the country.

Further, certain mishaps where EV vehicles caught fire led to a momentary setback for electric vehicles in India. It was found that those EVs had batteries with nickel, manganese, and cobalt that can catch fire easily due to high temperatures when operated beyond 40 degrees with the ambient temperature in India being 45 to 50 degrees. Moreover, there was no venting mechanism for overheated cells to release energy.

Over the past few months, there have been more cases of Ola electric scooters spontaneously catching fire. This led to shifting to LFP batteries or Lithium, iron, and phosphate or LTO (lithium titanate). An expert panel was set up to investigate the accidents that pointed out that the EVs were lacking the mechanism to identify overheating of cells.

The OEM and the government have shared the panel’s recommendations with the EV companies for taking corrective action. This has led several manufacturers to start recalling EVs from the market.

The Indian government is continually looking for ways to stimulate the growth of EVs by decreasing the price of gasoline imports along with various subsidies and incentives. In the last 10 years, there has been significant progress with electric vehicle production and its sales. The research efforts have also increased.

In the coming years, EVs will play an important role in Smart cities hence, more efforts are being facilitated for better-charging processes and improved battery technology.