Slashdot Mirror
Ola Wants a Million Electric Rides on India's Roads by 2021 (bloomberg.com)
Ride-hailing company Ola, Uber's fiercest Indian competitor, wants to roll out 10,000 electric three-wheeled rickshaws within a year and a million battery-powered vehicles by 2021. From a report: The startup run by ANI Technologies said it's in policy discussions with several state governments, and is talking with potential partners from automakers to battery producers. It aims to build out an existing pilot project in the central Indian city of Nagpur, where Ola's first EVs have already traveled more than 4 million kilometers. Ola's ambitions dovetail with the Indian government's objectives. Prime Minster Narendra Modi plans to significantly increase the number of new energy vehicles on the road. The power ministry in March said Modi had directed senior ministers to ensure that by 2030 most vehicles in India would be powered by electricity.
I want a BILLION!
What will be your priority?
Making as much money as you could, or giving up 10 hours per day not driving your vehicle (which means no income) while you try recharging it?
Add to that, India's power supply is notoriously unstable
https://in.reuters.com/article...
Clean energy stories on Slashdot aren't dog whistles, they're electrodes planted in the pleasure centers of the gullible.
If they're electric why do they sound like a misfiring 2-stroke? Oh wait, it was the driver talking.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
If the powers that be want more people to buy electric vehicles then build an electric vehicle that people would want to buy. It's really that simple.
But it's not that simple, is it? Because building an electric vehicle that people would want to buy is hard.
People don't burn petroleum because they want to pollute the air. They burn this stuff because that's how we get the lifestyle we all enjoy. There's no easy answer to this. Providing subsidies to buy electric vehicles are great for the people that get the subsidies, nut not necessarily for those that have to pay the taxes to fund them. These electric vehicle subsidies are a tax on the poor so the wealthy can buy a new electric vehicle. I believe that to be ethically problematic.
There's already quite the social and economic incentives to building and developing electric vehicles. People already buy electric vehicles as a social statement. People buy electric cars because they have advantages over those that burn hydrocarbons. We shouldn't have to pay people to buy them. If we want to see more people buy them then make them more awesome than they already are. Those that cannot do with anything less than a gasoline burner wouldn't buy an electric car if you paid them to. So, stop trying to pay people to buy electric cars.
Here's another problem, all electric vehicles do is transfer where the energy comes from. People will still need energy. We know how to synthesize hydrocarbons from electricity. This process is even more efficient if there's some heat added, such as that from burning wood or nuclear fission which are low carbon energy sources used to make electricity from heat already. Wherever this energy comes from for the electricity to charge these electric cars can also be used to synthesize hydrocarbons. Synthesizing hydrocarbons closes the carbon loop on burning those hydrocarbons, we won't be releasing more carbon into the environment from long separated off reservoirs deep in the earth. We can take the carbon from the air and water, make fuel from it, and when it's burned it goes into the air again for more fuel later. It's as carbon neutral as any electric car.
Synthetic fuels means no one needs a new car subsidy, even old cars become "green". Electricity capacity would have to be increased to compensate, but that would also be the case with electric vehicles. I'm not saying we should stop making electric vehicles. I'm saying that synthetic fuels needs development too. That's not going to happen if they have to compete with subsidized electric vehicles. The government is playing favorites in the market, and that's never good in the long run.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Or is this horse and buggy ride hails? Stagecoach? Cockaroach? Mmmm. Tasty!
And I want to live in a luxurious high rise in Tokyo, so what?
It looks like this is the electric rickshaw they're talking about.
great !! they have the right context to do just that : develop the 3 wheeled rickshaws that are far more efficients than huge cars ...
why would you use 1 ton to move you while a 10x lighter and efficient system can do the same, specially in cities.
it solve a lot of problems, including charging station/times and cost to start with
Indian homes use truck batteries and inverters to power their home during their periodic, regular, announced and un announced power cuts. Indian grid is woefully inadequate to handle charging loads of so many battery cars.
I read a piece on Karachi, Pakistan, (I know Pakistan is a different country, not a province of India) where families gets into their air-conditioned cars and drive around aimlessly to escape the mid day heat when the scheduled power cut kicks in. I am sure that is common in India too.
It could take a while for battery cars to take hold in India. Capital is very expensive in India. But the government is likely to encourage it. India is self sufficient in dirty coal, but needs to import oil for petrol and diesel. From balance of trade and foreign exchange perspectives, they really would like pure electric cars to take hold.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact