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India Aims To Make Every Car Electric By 2030 In Bid To Tackle Pollution (independent.co.uk)

India's energy minister has unveiled plans for every car sold in the country to be powered by electricity by the year 2030. "The move is intended to lower the cost of importing fuel and lower costs for running vehicles," reports The Independent. From the report: âoeWe are going to introduce electric vehicles in a very big way," coal and mines minister Piyush Goyal said at the Confederation of Indian Industry Annual Session 2017 in New Delhi. "We are going to make electric vehicles self-sufficient... The idea is that by 2030, not a single petrol or diesel car should be sold in the country." Mr Goyal said the electric car industry would need between two and three years of government assistance, but added that he expected the production of the vehicles to be "driven by demand and not subsidy" after that. "The cost of electric vehicles will start to pay for itself for consumers," he said according to the International Business Times. "We would love to see the electric vehicle industry run on its own," he added. An investigation by Greenpeace this year found that as many as 2.3 million deaths occur every year due to air pollution in the country. The report, entitled "Airpocalypse," claimed air pollution had become a "public health and economic crisis" for Indians. It said the number of deaths caused by air pollution was only "a fraction less" than the number of deaths from tobacco use, adding that 3 percent of the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was lost to the levels of toxic smog.

118 comments

  1. And yet, the (dirt) roads are full of SHIT! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And they think it's sacred? Gives new meaning to, HOLY SHIT!

    1. Re:And yet, the (dirt) roads are full of SHIT! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So that means the cars will be running on what coal?

      Predictions are cheap just ask the global warming cult.

    2. Re:And yet, the (dirt) roads are full of SHIT! by AutodidactLabrat · · Score: 1

      The global Warming Scientists who have been right since roughly 1973?

  2. Way to go, India! by OneHundredAndTen · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If only you were to put that much effort to provide running water, electricity and sanitation to the more than 600 million Indian citizens who lack it, the rest of the world would start taking you seriously.

    1. Re:Way to go, India! by zlives · · Score: 1

      yes but those can't buy cars so ...

    2. Re:Way to go, India! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      but those can't buy cars so ...

      Those aren't companies willing to bribe public officials, which is the only way things get done in India.

    3. Re:Way to go, India! by houstonbofh · · Score: 2

      That lack of electricity will make it kinda hard to charge all those electric cars... And most of that electricity that is there comes from coal,https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_India#Installed_capacity and I am guessing the significant bump in demand will mean more coal, so how is this helping air pollution again?

    4. Re:Way to go, India! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If only you were to put that much effort to provide running water, electricity and sanitation to the more than 600 million Indian citizens who lack it, the rest of the world would start taking you seriously.

      What type of ignorant moron are you?? You know a country can do more than one thing at once?:

      https://swarajyamag.com/ideas/gates-endorses-modis-toilet-building-initiative-says-india-is-winning-its-war-on-human-waste

    5. Re:Way to go, India! by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 4, Insightful

      If only you were to put that much effort to provide running water, electricity and sanitation

      Or maybe they could do more than one thing at a time, and try to solve problems in parallel. Just because someone in Uttar Pradesh doesn't have a flush toilet, doesn't mean that people in Mumbai should just accept suffocating air pollution for the next 13 years.

    6. Re:Way to go, India! by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 4, Informative

      most of that electricity that is there comes from coal,https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_India#Installed_capacity

      India is planning to invest $100B in solar between now and 2022. Most installed capacity is coal, but a much smaller fraction of new capacity is coal.

      the significant bump in demand will mean more coal, so how is this helping air pollution again?

      This point has been beaten to death, but apparently it needs to be repeated yet again: Even when using coal, electric cars produce less CO2 than ICEs. They also produce less other pollution, since a single coal plant scrubber is far more cost effective than thousands of individual catalytic converters on ICE vehicles. Also, the generation can occur outside of cities where far fewer people breathe it.

    7. Re:Way to go, India! by roc97007 · · Score: 1

      That's not necessarily a bad thing. Perhaps the availability of electric cars will drive the need for a reliable electric infrastructure.

      Or it could be a technological dead end. But even then, valuable information will be had from having done the experiment.

      --
      Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
    8. Re:Way to go, India! by roc97007 · · Score: 2

      > Also, the generation can occur outside of cities where far fewer people breathe it.

      To go off topic slightly, I've often thought that this is the main reason the majority of US manufacturing occurs in China. So the generation of pollution can occur outside our own cities. Like, way outside.

      --
      Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
    9. Re:Way to go, India! by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      Actually the people there already have cars.
      Converting them to electric makes sense.
      No idea bout 'running water' ... if you can not drink water from the tap it sounds kind of pointless to me.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    10. Re:Way to go, India! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Cool. Let us know when they get it down to under a half-billion people shitting in public.

    11. Re:Way to go, India! by AmiMoJo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It's a shame massive organisations like the government of over a billion people can only do one thing at a time. Otherwiseâ they could try to help everyone in different ways, simultaneously.

      Imagine if they could work to provide sanitation AND keep the air breathable. Sadly as we all know, governments can only do one thing at a time.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    12. Re:Way to go, India! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Cool. Let us know when they get it down to under a half-billion people shitting in public.

      The goal is to end open defecation by 2019. The percentage of Indians with access to proper sanitation has increased
      from 42% to 63% in a little over two years:

      Bill Gates Blog

    13. Re:Way to go, India! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Trust me, you don't want them to do that with a society based on combustion.
      Switch to sustainable tech first, then ramp up.

    14. Re:Way to go, India! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      India is not doing this to be taken seriously. It is doing this to address its own needs. Efforts to get running water, electricity and sanitation to all are already underway but progress everywhere else is not getting suspended for that.

    15. Re:Way to go, India! by dbIII · · Score: 1

      They have a manned space program in development instead of asking the Russians for a lift and they are working on the next generation of civilian nuclear reactors instead of something like the AP1000 which is 1970s tech painted green.
      So who is it that shouldn't be taken seriously?

      Personally I think both, but people in glass houses shouldn't really post while stoned should they above poster?

    16. Re:Way to go, India! by dbIII · · Score: 2

      That's a side effect. It was things like attempting to protect the US steel industry by putting in barriers to imports that resulted in the manufacturing moving to where steel was cheaper.

    17. Re: Way to go, India! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No. They will fail. Like everything else. The only thing they can do is modern day slavery. Btw, if 70,000 visa workers go to the us every year, how are these liars snd cheats even getting experience to fraudulently fill out forms ...

      A retort le question. The it sector must be huge there. Ohhh. No its not. American managers are dumb as shit to think they are getting trained and experienced personal from India.

      Statistically it is not possible.

    18. Re: Way to go, India! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Its 2017. India is ran by corrupt pieces of shit. Its a shit country. Servants are still used there. Its a fucking terrible place. Why do you think these lying Indian workers will leave everything behind to get the fuck out.

      Its a terrible place to live. Organ selling. Sex slavery. All legal there.

      Its a hell hole. God should wipe it from the map.

    19. Re:Way to go, India! by trawg · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Bill Gates was in India recently and actually posted about this very topic.

      tldr, they are putting in a lot of effort:

      So far, the progress is impressive. In 2014, when Clean India began, just 42 percent of Indians had access to proper sanitation. Today 63 percent do. And the government has a detailed plan to finish the job by October 2, 2019, the 150th anniversary of Mahatma Gandhiâ(TM)s birth. Officials know which states are on track and which are lagging behind, thanks to a robust reporting system that includes photographing and geotagging each newly installed toilet.

    20. Re:Way to go, India! by thegarbz · · Score: 2

      This is the reason trade barriers were supposed to exist. By comparing the relative benefits your citizens get to the abuse of citizens of other nations at a discount, you enact trade barriers to keep manufacturing and jobs local. A practical example:

      The $0.02 you spend per part that goes towards not pouring sludge in the local USA river results in a $0.02 import tariff on China where they could otherwise pour the sludge down the river. If you enact free trade the result is jobs and manufacturing goes to where it becomes cheapest. But politicians seem to be obsessed with selling their own countries to the devil.

      It is also one of the more laughable arguments in Brexit where people said they are sick of EU standards stipulating how UK companies manufacture. Well once they are out, they will have to continue following EU standards if they want to sell their products there, and the worst case would be a lower quality product sold locally than exported. But hey sovereignty amirite.

    21. Re:Way to go, India! by silentcoder · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Nah. Mostly it happened for one simple reason: an autocratic government that doesn't give a damn how many people die on the job - and a billion desperate people, which makes for a labour price no country can ever compete with.

      Sorry, not going to happen. No amount of deregulation will ever do it. America can never, again, compete with Chinese labour.

      So how do you keep your manufacturing alive, and creating jobs, when you cannot ever be as cheap ? You need to give people a reason to buy your good DESPITE it being more expensive. Germany had all the same price pressures as America- and a much MORE worker-friendly labour law, and kept their manufacturing alive and growing.
      Because people buy German goods EVEN though they are more expensive. Germany's "something worth paying more for" was exceptional engineering. The goods are high quality, long lasting, envelope-pushing technology. Their cars were more efficient, more pleasant to drive, and safer if you got in an accident for example.

      This is what America failed to do in manufacturing - give people a reason to buy the goods they made. And vertical integration as a business philosophy died an unjust death. That's why America has all those silicon valley companies and even the ones who specialise in hardware no longer make hardware. But that wasn't always the way. For a decade and a half the best selling, most popular, and cheapest computer in the world was the commodore64 - and it achieved that exactly because Commodore was by then the only computer company to still have their own factories. Vertical integration became a key enabler of their engineering expertise. You have a suggestion for a minor modification to the chip which could speed up certain calculations... but you're worried it will overheat. Instead of relying on simulators which must inevitably be conservative in their estimates, they could actually turn on their own factory and make 5 chips with the new design and test them - and see if it worked. And then go mass-production finally with a chip that combined the best results of hundreds of these small inhouse-only test chips - and itself tested extensively in a tiny production run.
      That model is pretty much dead today though.

      But yes, countries that want to have manufacturing industries today - need to offer something worth paying more for. Because you can never beat China on price, with a billion desperate people and autocratic government that doesn't care what those people think: they can ALWAYS undercut you, no matter how low you go, they WILL go lower.

      --
      Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
    22. Re: Way to go, India! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's the model that the USA is looking to become.

    23. Re:Way to go, India! by silentcoder · · Score: 1

      Hillbillies will be hillbillies, even when they are hillbillies in India.

      --
      Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
    24. Re:Way to go, India! by PolygamousRanchKid+ · · Score: 1

      If only you were to put that much effort to provide running water, electricity and sanitation to the more than 600 million Indian citizens who lack it, the rest of the world would start taking you seriously.

      India has enough running water, electricity and sanitation . . . India has just plain too many people; with 600 million+ people, there will never be enough of something to go around. Provide more running water? The Ganges will be stone dry in a few days. They will need to ignite vast forest fires to melt the glaciers in the Himalayas to keep the Ganges running. Electricity everywhere? They won't be able to keep the grid standing, and no one will be able to find or afford a light bulb in a store. Provide more sanitation? Well, you'll be stranded on the toilet bowl, when there ain't nothing on the roll . . . no toilet paper available! And toilet brushes . . . ask some older folks in the former East Germany about their catastrophic toilet brush shortage.

      No, you need to attack the root of the problem . . . they have too many people and need to cut back on their production. The lucky ones of the overproduction get sent to the US, as H-1Bs. The unlucky ones get sent to oil-rich Arab states as slaves.

      The equation is really dirt simple: the less mouths to feed, the less food you need.

      But to convince people NOT to reproduce? That's difficult, because even without education or intelligence, reproduction is one thing that humans really excel at, even when in the most inhospitable environments.

      --
      Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
    25. Re:Way to go, India! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Never? I work for a Chinese company. We are shifting more jobs and manufacturing here each year. Why? Cost and quality. Chinese labor is getting expensive and the productivity and quality isn't keeping up. Meanwhile, any manufacturing in the US is so lean, and the quality is so much better, we save time and money. We're talking engineering, machining, etc. All for export to China.

      The only thing slowing us down from expanding in the US faster are capital controls. It's a nightmare getting cash out of China to buy things. So much so, we are looking to sell products designed and made in the USA into the US and European markets to make money to pay for exports to China. Yeah, that's messed up.

    26. Re:Way to go, India! by dunkelfalke · · Score: 2

      your logic is flawed - a mass production facility is not required for prototyping.

      --
      "It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
    27. Re:Way to go, India! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      CO2 is not the problem it's the fucking smog how are people so blind.

      I guess the smog over Chinese cities are a good thing in your world?

    28. Re:Way to go, India! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you're one of the 600 million Indians lacking basic clean water and sanitation (I'm not so sure about the electricity part, as all the ramshackle shacks I saw on my trip through Mumbai last year seemed to have satellite dishes attached, and illegal tapping into overhead power lines seems to be rife throughout S.E. Asia) then you're probably still quite a few years away from being in the market for a new car.

    29. Re:Way to go, India! by roc97007 · · Score: 1

      I wouldn't say flawed, I'd say incomplete. You're right about prototyping. But that's nowhere near the bulk of manufacturing.

      --
      Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
    30. Re:Way to go, India! by silentcoder · · Score: 1

      I never said you needed a mass production facility for prototyping. I said you need a production facility.
      As it happens - the Commodore company was quite adamant that their success sprouted from prototyping in the SAME mass production facility where the final product would be made.

      --
      Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
  3. thanks India! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    India Aims To Make Every Car Electric By 2030 In Bid To Tackle Pollution

    Sweet! Looking forward to my 1996 Chevy becoming electric. It still runs but is starting to have transmission problems.

    1. Re:thanks India! by mspohr · · Score: 1
      --
      I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
    2. Re:thanks India! by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

      If you're going electric, go in style!

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    3. Re:thanks India! by shilly · · Score: 1

      Stylish is overrated:
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

  4. India is... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...a shithole so wrapped up in red tape that nothing ever gets done about pollution problems. Perhaps they can deal with people shitting, pissing and dumping their garbage in the river, or the open sewage systems first. Next to these issues which are probably much easier to solve, nation-wide electric car adoption seems pretty unimportant.

    1. Re:India is... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, at least they don't have all those pesky job-killing restrictions on safety, food purity, environmental quality or business fraud that keep America from being great again and making it possible to get workers to accept 15 rupees per day as income.

  5. What will happen to all those spent batteries? by bogaboga · · Score: 1

    With at least 200 million vehicles, if just 100 million of these become electric, I with about a quarter of them getting battery replacements, where will the spent batteries be kept?

    How about pollution?

    Folks, be prepared for a toxic mess over there.

    1. Re:What will happen to all those spent batteries? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      where will the spent batteries be kept?

      I'm guessing the same place most people shit and piss. Which is wherever they happen to be when the need arises.

    2. Re:What will happen to all those spent batteries? by mspohr · · Score: 1

      The batteries will be in cars for 10 years or so and then they can be recycled for their valuable materials.

      --
      I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
    3. Re:What will happen to all those spent batteries? by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 1

      The batteries will be in cars for 10 years or so and then they can be recycled for their valuable materials.

      Where are you buying these magical 10-year-plus car batteries?

      --
      #DeleteChrome
    4. Re:What will happen to all those spent batteries? by p0p0 · · Score: 1

      Have you seen the rivers? They'll probably just dump them in there with the bodies and raw sewage.

      http://www.planetcustodian.com... (NSFW. Lots of images of bodies, sewage, and human waste.)

    5. Re:What will happen to all those spent batteries? by mspohr · · Score: 4, Informative

      The current Li-ion batteries installed in cars such as the Tesla should last at least 10 years. Of course, they haven't been in the cars 10 years yet but some cars have traveled over 200,000 miles with less than 10% degradation.

      --
      I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
    6. Re:What will happen to all those spent batteries? by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 2

      Where are you buying these magical 10-year-plus car batteries?

      You can find plenty of them in 10-year-plus Priuses. Even after 10 years, most of them still have 80% or better battery capacity.

      Of course, technology has improved, so batteries produced today should last even longer.

    7. Re:What will happen to all those spent batteries? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You can find plenty of them in 10-year-plus Priuses. Even after 10 years, most of them still have 80% or better battery capacity

      The Prius isn't an electric car - it's a hybrid that can afford to keep the battery from discharging as much as an electric has to. Yes, you can have an electric car with significantly reduced range in order to prolong the battery life the way a Prius or Volt does, but then your range makes the car less practical.

      Anyway, it doesn't matter because EVENTUALLY you need to replace that battery and I just can't believe that India is the kind of place that will get that done in an environmentally sound way.

    8. Re:What will happen to all those spent batteries? by Robotbeat · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Except like a Prius (but unlike, say, a Leaf), a large battery EV like a Tesla (or a GM Bolt) doesn't need to hit the ends of its capacity. In fact, a Tesla experiences very few cycles (relatively speaking) since the battery is so large. You seem to think that a small battery electric car will last longer than a large battery electric car, but the reality is the opposite (although both the Volt and Prius are special cases as they are plug-in hybrids).

      Electric car batteries are designed to last for the entire life of the vehicle, like over 200,000 miles. At some point, I suppose you'd need to replace a car engine, too. Same deal. Car engine is recycled. Electric car battery is recycled.

      India will get it done because the materials in car batteries are worth recycling. It's the same reason we don't put car engines in a landfill but instead we scrap them.

    9. Re:What will happen to all those spent batteries? by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      Any kind of battery is easily recycled.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    10. Re:What will happen to all those spent batteries? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      How about pollution?

      You know what? How about you keep an ICE going in your bedroom for the next year and I will keep an electric engine going together with storing whatever battery waste I get there.
      Make it ten if you want, or fifty years.

      Not even counting the emissions you will still end up with more toxic sludge from the ICE than I will get from the batteries.

      Well, they already have that mess. Now they want to reduce it to something more manageable.

    11. Re: What will happen to all those spent batteries? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Correction.
      Even more toxic mess than now..

    12. Re:What will happen to all those spent batteries? by dbIII · · Score: 1

      In the world of tomorrow - or maybe the week after next. The cutting edge stuff you can get today is that good but we've only seen it as consumers in small devices (or aircraft batteries on fire!). It's a matter of a little bit more product development and process line design to get economies of scale instead of outright invention.

    13. Re:What will happen to all those spent batteries? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And you think these are the cars half a billion or more people will drive in India?

      First of all this will not happen in 50 years in India and these predictions are made for morons in the west.

  6. Power hungry by unixcorn · · Score: 2

    Will India's electric infrastructure handle the additional load? Do they have enough generating capacity for when everyone plugs in their car at night? Finally, will they simply offset the burning of oil with burning coal at power plants? The article was sorely lacking in any substantial information about the plan.

    1. Re:Power hungry by houstonbofh · · Score: 1

      Coal is already the biggest source of power, and the easiest to ramp up... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... Damn and solar plants are kinda hard to scale up fast.

    2. Re:Power hungry by mspohr · · Score: 1

      India just unveiled the world's largest solar plant:
      http://www.aljazeera.com/news/...
      It only took 8 months to build it.
      India will be the third largest solar market this year.

      --
      I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
    3. Re:Power hungry by mspohr · · Score: 3, Informative

      India just opened the largest solar plant in the world and it only took 8 months to build. Much faster to install solar than anything else. (Coal plants take years and nuclear takes forever)
      http://www.aljazeera.com/news/...

      India expects to install 10 GW of solar this year:
      https://cleantechnica.com/2017...

      --
      I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
    4. Re:Power hungry by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Do they have enough generating capacity for when everyone plugs in their car at night?"

      You do understand how solar works, right?

    5. Re:Power hungry by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Will India's electric infrastructure handle the additional load? Do they have enough generating capacity for when everyone plugs in their car at night? Finally, will they simply offset the burning of oil with burning coal at power plants? The article was sorely lacking in any substantial information about the plan.

      India's electrical grid is pretty bad. They have significant stability and reliability issues that need to be addressed, both on the generation side and the transmission side, before they can add this amount of load.

    6. Re:Power hungry by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      india at night --> sun in europe & africa

    7. Re:Power hungry by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Shh. You're not fitting in to the slashdot that'll never work echo chamber.

    8. Re:Power hungry by houstonbofh · · Score: 1

      india at night --> sun in europe & africa

      India is 4-6 hours off from all of Europe and Africa. That still leaves a lot of darkness!

    9. Re:Power hungry by houstonbofh · · Score: 1

      So solar works at night for you?

  7. Electric cars are as clean as the electricity used by MAXOMENOS · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Electric cars are fine and dandy, but we still need to produce electricity to power them. Where will that come from? Solar and wind would be the best source as they pollute the least; nuclear is a good option if you're using more modern plant designs. Natural gas might actually be worse in terms of CO2 emissions. Coal would be the worst case scenario; the smoke contains all sorts of pollutants not emitted by modern gasoline engines.

  8. 100 million battery powered cars? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Am I the only one who's first thought was Bhopal?

    1. Re:100 million battery powered cars? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What, Union Carbide makes batteries? I think, yes, it does!

  9. Re:Electric cars are as clean as the electricity u by nasch · · Score: 1

    Natural gas worse than what, gasoline? No way, natural gas is CH4, gasoline has a lot more carbon than that.

  10. Re: With electric windows? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And when a Christian or a Muslim takes a dump it smells of roses!!!

  11. You can make electric cars by Tsolias · · Score: 0

    But you can't make electric indians...so the pollution will still be there.

  12. Range is not the concern there, cost is. by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 4, Informative
    Capital is very expensive there. Most people do not drive very long distances in cars like they do in USA or Europe. For long distance travel the trains are very inexpensive and good. A little grimy but good value for money. So the typical 150km per charge technology is good enough for most Indians.

    The main issue is cost. As long as battery car costs more than gas car, it will be difficult to persuade them to buy electric. Second major issue access to charging outlets. Most people park on the street or in apartment car parking spaces. So unless price comes down a lot electric cars will not gain traction there. But, if the imminent inevitable battery technology break through comes through, then they will switch to electric in a hurry. They will find ways to have metered outlets in car parking spaces and even the streets. Third issue is the frequent power cuts and brown outs.

    In fact Tesla's wall battery for residential uses will be more attractive to them. Almost all the homes have a couple of truck lead-acid batteries fully charged to run the fridge, a couple of lights, and the TV during the powercuts. Now a days I see ads for "inverter air conditioners". Air conditioners designed to run on AC power generated by the inverter from a 12 v battery. The wave form is a crudely chopped square wave, and it is brutal on the motors. But these aircon motors are designed to handle it.

    --
    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
    1. Re:Range is not the concern there, cost is. by Solandri · · Score: 1

      The main issue is cost.

      Actually, I think the main issue will be distribution of electricity. Their distribution system is haphazard, unsafe, poorly or not designed, and in many cases illegal. Now they're proposing doubling or tripling the total amount of electricity delivered over those lines to charge electric vehicles?

    2. Re:Range is not the concern there, cost is. by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      In Europe people are driving long distances in a car once a year. For vacations ... when we have to take kids, surfing gear and other stuff with us.

      Otherwise you use a train or a plane. Driving more then lets say 300km is just plain stupid.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    3. Re:Range is not the concern there, cost is. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      >Now a days I see ads for "inverter air conditioners". Air conditioners designed to run on AC power generated by the inverter from a 12 v battery. The wave form is a crudely chopped square wave, and it is brutal on the motors. But these aircon motors are designed to handle it.

      I think you have this wrong. Inverter air conditioners use an internal inverter to generate a PWM to power the compressor. The compressor can thus run at whatever speed makes the most sense.

      I know it seems counter-intuitive at first, but electric air conditioners are most efficient when they don't turn off. The trouble is, then you move an unnecessary amount of heat out of the home (And thus the inefficiency happens: Start/stop cycles). The inverter technology solves this by being able to run the compressor at various speeds and thus adjusting the level of continuous "cooling"---variable BTU heat extraction. Because they don't have to turn off (unless you want very, very little cooling) they save a bunch of money avoiding the start/stop cycles.

      Because the compressor is driven by an inverter-based PWM, dirty power is cleaned up before it reaches the compressor, extending its life. Technically, square waves would be the most efficient power source for one of these A/C units, but I don't know enough of the PWMs design to say if it is advisable or not.

      Anyways, the fact they clean up dirty power is just a side effect of the real reason they exist, which is a combination of keeping temperature at a constant level (because they don't have to cycle on/off) and improving efficiency (because those cycles are wasteful).

    4. Re:Range is not the concern there, cost is. by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 1

      Dont know why it was modded down. It is quite informative about how the inverter aircons work.

      --
      sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
  13. Re: With electric windows? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    When a Jew does it, it smells like corned beef and sauerkraut.

  14. Re:Electric cars are as clean as the electricity u by burtosis · · Score: 2

    Electric cars are fine and dandy, but we still need to produce electricity to power them. Where will that come from? Solar and wind would be the best source as they pollute the least; nuclear is a good option if you're using more modern plant designs. Natural gas might actually be worse in terms of CO2 emissions. Coal would be the worst case scenario; the smoke contains all sorts of pollutants not emitted by modern gasoline engines.

    Precisely spot on. Couldn't resist posting that guess what the majority of electricity in India is produced by? coal is 60% of all electricity in India. This actually makes co2 pollution worse than efficient gas engines, or hybrids. Not that it isn't the right move, but they need to couple it with a serious push in green energy or the only thing they will be helping is particulates and smog in the cities, co2 emissions could worsen.

  15. Make everyone use the toilet instead by sciengin · · Score: 1

    I think that the thousands of people dying from infections they caught from the designated shitting streets are a bigger problem than the few who may die by car-based pollution.
    Then again it might not be as glamorous for the government to announce as making every car electric.

    And no this is not racism, out-door defecating is indeed a huge problem in India:

    http://www.planetcustodian.com...

    http://theplanetd.com/india-is...

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/heal...

    1. Re:Make everyone use the toilet instead by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      3% is a substantial number. Anyway, how do you think governments work? There is only one task at a time? Governments are capable of working on many issues simultaneously. Even in a total war, that's just what government do. Like, there is the department of sanitation, and they have a budget independent from the department of transportion or the department of the environment.

      Surely by 2030 they also plan to improve public access to restrooms.

    2. Re:Make everyone use the toilet instead by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Governments are capable of working on many issues simultaneously.

      They are also capable of ignoring many issues simultaneously.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    3. Re:Make everyone use the toilet instead by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think that the thousands of people dying from infections they caught from the designated shitting streets are a bigger problem than the few who may die by car-based pollution.
      Then again it might not be as glamorous for the government to announce as making every car electric.

      And no this is not racism, out-door defecating is indeed a huge problem in India:

      http://www.planetcustodian.com...

      http://theplanetd.com/india-is...

      http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/heal...

      I know! India can either have electric cars or they can have sanitation. They can't have both! We need to tell Prime Minister Modi and Bill Gates:

      https://www.gatesnotes.com/Development/Indias-War-on-Human-Waste

  16. Re:Electric cars are as clean as the electricity u by Dutchmaan · · Score: 1

    India seems like it would be perfect for a solar revolution. Almost the entire nation has enough sunlight to produce between 5.0-6.0 kWh/m^2 and enough of a population to make a grass roots effort actually worth something.

  17. Re:Electric cars are as clean as the electricity u by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    All countries should take a long look at how it will produce the electricity for all electric cars. It could be that there will be worse environmental damage from them.

    And what will you do with the spent batteries?

  18. Re:Electric cars are as clean as the electricity u by Solandri · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Natural gas might actually be worse in terms of CO2 emissions.

    The energy from burning fossil fuels comes from combining hydrocarbons (chains of carbon and hydrogen) with oxygen in the air to form CO2 and H2O (primarily). Both CO2 and H2O are at a lower energy state than the original hydrocarbon, and thus their formation gives off energy.

    Natural gas (CH4) gives you 1 CO2 + 2 H2O. 2 water for each carbon dioxide molecule generated.

    Gasoline consists mostly of alkenes and cycloalkenes.

    • Alkenes are of the form C(n)H(2n+2), where n=4 to 12. So from C4H10 to C12H26. These result in final products of 4 CO2 + 5 H2O, to 12 CO2 + 13 H2O per carbon atoms.
    • Cycloalkenes are of the form C(n)H(2n+2-2r), where r is the number of carbon-carbon bonds. So are always generate more CO2 than the equivalent alkene (same n).

    So gasoline only generates 1.25 or fewer water molecules for each carbon dioxide molecule, compared to natural gas at 2 water molecule for each carbon dioxide molecule.

    Natural gas produces the most water per CO2 atom of any hydrocarbon, meaning burning it generates the most energy per CO2 atom emitted of any hydrocarbon. Or put another way, for a given amount of energy generated, natural gas does it with the least CO2 emissions of any hydrocarbon (because a greater portion of its energy comes from forming water). Environmentalists just try to badmouth it because they wanted us to switch to renewables, and instead we switched to a cleaner fossil fuel.

    Methane (natural gas) is actually about 10x more potent a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. So if you're not gonna burn natural gas to generate energy, you're better off just burning it to convert it into carbon dioxide. Before oil prices rose above about $30/bbl, it wasn't worth it to capture the methane which came up the wells with the petroleum (methane requires high pressure or cryogenic storage). So we were just burning a lot of it without trying to capture its energy. At least now we're using that energy.

  19. India is building hundreds of coal fired plants by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "Its 2015 INDC plans submitted before the Paris COP imply an increase of over 300 GW of coal by 2030. Taking the current US average size of a coal plant as a benchmark, that’d be nearly 600 new coal plants."

    http://energydesk.greenpeace.org/2016/10/03/climate-india-coal-power/

    1. Re:India is building hundreds of coal fired plants by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Most of those implied "600 new coal plants" are in planning only, or not even that - it's only building a fraction of those. And as the article said, it doesn't need any of them any time soon, and possibly never will.

  20. Not going to happen by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 2

    India doesn't have a complete grid, much less a grid strong enough to recharge a bunch of cars. Solar and battery would work, if they could afford it... or indoor plumbing. There are many issues preventing this from happening but I'm glad they are at least trying.

    --
    Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
  21. Re:Electric cars are as clean as the electricity u by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It could be that there will be worse environmental damage from them.

    Nope, not even if they're powered entirely by coal.

    And what will you do with the spent batteries?

    Recycle them, just like we do already with the lead-acid ones.

  22. Re:Electric cars are as clean as the electricity u by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    People seem to forget that gasoline has to be made, and delivered. It doesn't magically appear at a gas station.

  23. Re:Electric cars are as clean as the electricity u by Robotbeat · · Score: 4, Insightful

    India has nuclear power, too. And electric cars (especially with large batteries) are good at smoothing over variable renewables since drivers can charge when power is cheapest (just like people fill up their cars where gas is cheapest).

    And even coal (if burned far from the city and with good scrubbers) beats an asthma-inducing and smog-filled city. A coal power plant also can be run very efficiently. If you include the energy cost needed to refine gasoline, then a good, supercritical steam, multi-stage coal power plant charging an electric car may even have fewer CO2 emissions than a conventional gasoline powered vehicle.

    But India is also close to the equator, which means more sunshine and less seasonal variation in sunlight (northern Germany and the UK are actually terrible for solar for this reason).

  24. Yes, they are all being worked on by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Electrification status, including contact numbers for the people responsible: http://garv.gov.in/dashboard/ue
    Water and sanitation, recent successes: https://rwsnforum7.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/full_paper_0260_submitter_0352_misra_smita.pdf

  25. worth doing by roc97007 · · Score: 2

    So, yes, it's been pointed out that a great number, maybe the majority, of the population don't have running water or decent sanitation. But any solution can be abandoned by sufficiently enlarging the scope of the problem. Cities in India have a pollution problem that is significantly worse than in the US. That particular problem is worth solving, even though the problems of water and sanitation also need solving.

    The possible win I see in this sort of conversion, besides reducing air pollution, is that it makes having a reliable electrical infrastructure more urgent, so maybe that problem will be solved also. And if they solve it with point source solutions like solar panels, those are naturally adaptable for smaller communities that are currently off the grid, which would be another win.

    Or, it could all be a scam to fill the pockets of a few officials. We'll just have to see.

    --
    Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
  26. Sometimes you set an ambitious goal... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... and then fix everything that needs to be fixed to get to that goal. If you decide to design the worlds thinnest laptop, then:
    - You'll need to mill it out of Aluminum. If your factory doesn't have milling machines, you'll need to buy them.
    - You'll need to redesign out the second layer of glass over the LCD in traditional laptops
    - You'll need to move to a non-replaceable battery. Then to make it last acceptably long, you'll need to optimize your OS for low power.
    - You'll need to get rid of the CD drive. Then you'll need to distribute your software via the internet. You'll need to create an online store. ... and so on.

    If you decide to do something worthwhile, there a large list of problems that will need to be addressed. In this case, not only will the electricity distribution need to be addressed, but so will electricity generation. For example, to address power supply issues with India's rural electrification project, the Indian government funded a factory to manufacture LED bulbs and then sold them at a subsidy. Sure, it cost money BUT they could do it today, vs. waiting for additional capacity to come online.

    1. Re:Sometimes you set an ambitious goal... by shilly · · Score: 1

      And as your example rightly points out, you need to think big. India's LED project has sold 500m bulbs. Not bad going.

  27. Re:Electric cars are as clean as the electricity u by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

    No, it does not.
    Car engines have an efficiency of 20% or less.
    A coal power plant is at 45%.
    Charging electric cars is close to 100%
    So: using coal plants to charge electric cars basically reduces emissions by 50%.

    --
    Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  28. The US grid is old as well and it needs work to gi by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 1

    The US grid is old as well and it needs work.

  29. Re:Electric cars are as clean as the electricity u by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

    Environmentalists just try to badmouth it because they wanted us to switch to renewables, and instead we switched to a cleaner fossil fuel.

    Environmentalists "just" badmouth it because it's releasing sequestered carbon, and they're fracking to get more of it. Gee, is that all?

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  30. Re:Electric cars are as clean as the electricity u by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

    Charging electric cars is close to 100%

    It's more like 90%, and then the motor is about 95% efficient at using the power. That's still pretty fantastic, but there continue to be significant losses which must be accounted for.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  31. Re:Electric cars are as clean as the electricity u by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

    And electric cars (especially with large batteries) are good at smoothing over variable renewables since drivers can charge when power is cheapest (just like people fill up their cars where gas is cheapest).

    Plus if you design the motor to run on the same frequency and voltage as the mains, or at least design the motor controller to be capable of outputting it, you can have the car itself supply power back to the grid to help smooth out the dips.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  32. Re: With electric windows? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    When a racist does a shit, it smells just the same as when they open their potty mouth to talk.

  33. Re:Electric cars are as clean as the electricity u by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Actually yes it will, even if there were 100% coal production for energy in an area, the proper filtering at the heat plant is more efficient at capture of pollutants.

  34. Re:Electric cars are as clean as the electricity u by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If that was true we would be running the power plants of gasoline instead of coal.
    We don't because once you dig into those numbers you will see that some things weren't accounted for.

  35. Typo by dbIII · · Score: 1

    I meant to write that both should be taken seriously.
    India should be taken seriously despite problems just as the USA should be taken seriously despite the "rust belt" being abandoned etc.

  36. 2.3 million deaths by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    they'll just exchange those attributed to pollution to added ones from either a) getting run over by rapidly accelerating silent death machines..... or b) from suicides and mass murders from people going crazy because they made all the cars beep constantly to avoid (a).

  37. Re:Electric cars are as clean as the electricity u by thegarbz · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Coal would be the worst case scenario; the smoke contains all sorts of pollutants not emitted by modern gasoline engines.

    I'm not sure how many more times it needs to be said, but one coal plant is far preferable to the equivalent energy generated in many thousands of small inefficient engines. Extra bonus points for the coal plant not being in the city centre.

    Switching from diesel to 100% coal powered ICE is still a net win for people, but the reality is not going to be 100% coal powered so it's only really a question of how much better it can get, not if it will be better.

  38. Re:Electric cars are as clean as the electricity u by silentcoder · · Score: 1

    >you're better off just burning it [wikipedia.org] to convert it into carbon dioxide

    That is only true of methane already in the atmosphere or about to go into it. Now in some cases this applies. In Sweden a glacier being melted by global warming is now unleashing vast swathes of formerly ice-trapped methane, the Swedes have (quite wisely) decided to burn this methane in a powerplant rather than let it get into the atmosphere.

    On the other hand the methane trapped where fracking goes to get it - would pretty much have been sequestered permanently short of a massive (as in volcano level) geological event. There is no environmental benefit to burning that stuff.

    And of course, mining is always environmentally destructive - so don't ignore the damage done just getting it out. Oklahoma went from no earthquakes ever to an earthquake-a-day-keeps-the-boogeyman-away in a decade thanks to the damage done by Fracking....

    --
    Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
  39. Yet They Still Shit in the Streets by netglen · · Score: 1

    Such an ambitious undertaking and yet the majority of the population doesn't even have a indoor toilet. The masses still need to poop in the streets or on the railroad tracks. They local governments still hire poop scrappers to walk around the town to pick up human waste.

    1. Re:Yet They Still Shit in the Streets by Cro+Magnon · · Score: 1

      They could kill two birds with one car. Introducing, the first poop-powered car! If they run out of fuel, they can scrape it off the streets.

      --
      Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
  40. Re:Electric cars are as clean as the electricity u by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

    Electric engines are around 99% efficient.
    Same for charging batteries, that is why I wrote 'close to'.

    The losses are ofc in the transmission and tires etc. But those are the same regardless of engine type.

    --
    Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  41. Re:Electric cars are as clean as the electricity u by burtosis · · Score: 1

    Electric engines are around 99% efficient. Same for charging batteries, that is why I wrote 'close to'.

    The losses are ofc in the transmission and tires etc. But those are the same regardless of engine type.

    Electric motors are only efficient when lightly loaded. Pmdc motors used in some EVs are around 90-93% at peak efficiency, 50% efficient at peak power, and drop to 0% efficiency when stopped/stalled - that is when they accelerate the vehicle most strongly. An induction motor, used in EVs, is slightly more complicated, but they tend to be more efficient across a larger rpm range. However they are still around 50% efficient at peak power and have poor efficiency at low speed high torque. This isn't counting any other losses like the motor controller electronics, mechanical drivetrain, etc.

    Battery charging itself can approach 99% under perfect conditions, but the charger is only around 95-97% and you must include transmission line losses which average 2.2% to 13.3% by state and typically run around 6-7%. .99x.96x.935 is 89% which is the realistic number to use when stating charge efficiency. Note 89% is pretty idealized, it's possible to get 70% while not realistic to get above 94% under a perfect and unlikely case.

  42. Re:Electric cars are as clean as the electricity u by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

    I never heard that an electric engine had different efficiencies at different rpm's.
    And honestly: why should that be the case?

    Chargers are also close to 99% efficiency ... transmission losses don't really make sense to count in. You pay what the meter displays at your house. No one cares how much loss you had before, that is up to the grid operator.

    And: oil is transported in pipelines, usually. And they have transmission losses, too. That is how pipelines work. They have pumps every few dozen km, those pumps usually are run by burning oil or gas.

    Looks like you are mixing up torque with efficiency :) Anyway the point of my original post was: an EV is significantly more efficient than a ICE vehicle.

    --
    Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  43. Re:Electric cars are as clean as the electricity u by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It is better but not great.

  44. Don't have to. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Just get the worse cars, buses and trucks off the roads. Just get all the 2 cycle oil burning vehicles off the road. And all of the old buses and trucks burning diesel gas off the road. Do that first.

  45. Re:Electric cars are as clean as the electricity u by kimgkimg · · Score: 1

    Yes, but still easier to control emissions from a handful of coal plants rather than millions of tailpipes.

  46. Re:Electric cars are as clean as the electricity u by burtosis · · Score: 1

    No charger is 99% efficient. You have losses in the switching circuitry, battery management and safety circuits, motor controller pass through, the batteries themselves, etc. This user group forum reports real world situations where the efficiency is as low as 54%. Line losses matter because the whole reason for this thread on EV in the first place is about lowering pollution CO2, which is dependent on line losses. If you read my original link, you will find in India today (well a couple of years ago when the study was done but basically same as today) that electric vehicles pollute more co2 than gas ones due to the reasons I've listed.

    When the electric motor has applied power, but the output rotaton is zero, efficiently is by definition zero. Thus all powered motors of any kind have zero efficiency at stall. Here is an example of a engineering document explaining how basic electric motor formulas work. Though these are for smaller motors used in machinery, they are basically the same/similar for all types of electric motors used in cars of all kinds.

    I have a masters in mechanical engineering and have designed systems that include electric motors for 10 years.

  47. A better solution. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Free vasectomies and tubal libations.