Electric CVs

The rise in electric commercial vehicles is inevitable. It is good for the environment, but needs to made sustainable in the wake of some failed experiments like the fleet of electric cabs at Nagpur. Likewise, the failure of biofuel city buses in the same city. The efforts of startups to offer retrofitted electric trucks and buses, and that of the OEMs need to be appreciated, but at the same time one need not get swayed as much work in building a supporting infrastructure for electric vehicles to operate is yet to be done. A charging station here or there are not enough. Neither are attempts to charge electric CVs using diesel generators just because the grid fails. Imagine the possibility of even 60 per cent of the two-wheelers in a city going electric. Would they be as easy to operate as the conventional two-wheelers? How much would the city’s grid need to supply them with electricity? Energy consumption the world over is rising. Our ways to address this seems to be connected with burning coal. Solar harvesting is not yet the order of the day where even households or housing societies and complexes could generate electricity and pass on the excess to the city’s grid. Much needs to be done yet for electrification of automobiles. Much needs to be done to ensure that the auto industry is able to offer competitive and sustainable solutions as long as they assure zero tailpipe emission. Then it does not matter if it is biofuel, LNG or some other means. Only it has to be sustainable and not an experiment failure.

Vivek Ghormade, Nagpur