E DRIVEN
The arrival of electric and hybrid vehicle
The glitz and glamour at the biggest auto show in Delhi drew the highest number of footfalls ever. The show unveiled dreams and many of them had a green wrap this time. Amid the slew of small cars at the expo, held on January 5-11, was a line-up of electric and hybrid vehicles. Suddenly, e-vehicles have trudged up the popularity chart and become part of the business model of major automakers—both local and global. Some of them have finally looked beyond the conventional internal combustion engines and to a completely new genre of technology.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, concerns about
air pollution and more important, the OPEC oil embargo, kindled interest in e-cars. This got further impetus in California’s Zero Emission Vehicle Mandate that demanded 2 per cent of California’s vehicles to be zero emission by 1998 and 10 per cent by 2003. But the mandate waned due to technical and cost barriers. Sales plummeted and global carmakers such as Toyota rolled back their plans.
Concern over high oil prices and stringency in pollution and climate regulations have once again spurred new interest in e-vehicles. These are fuel efficient, as, technically the conversion of electrical energy into motive power is more efficient than burning fuel in an internal combustion engine. According to the California Air Resource Board, the estimated fuel efficiency of e-vehicles is three times higher than the conventional car. As electricity costs significantly less than oil, the operating cost per kilometre falls to a fraction of that in a petrol car.
Several international organisations including the International Energy Agency forecast modest growth of electrification of the vehicle market by 2020 in a conservative scenario. This could increase to a quarter of the new vehicle sales by 2050.
High prices, limited range, slow investment in technology improvement and lack of charging infrastructure have significantly slowed the commercialisation of e-vehicles. The battery is a major chunk of the cost of e-vehicles. It costs nearly 30 per cent of an e-bike’s price. And it has to be replaced every two to three years. For an e-car, a battery costs `60,000 to `70,000.