EVs: The Misguided Missile

Robin Sharma was right when he said: Everything is created twice, once in mind and then in reality.

When you skip either of the two, the problem starts. EV (Electric Vehicles) story in India is going in a similar way.

We are living in the world where creating hype has become bigger and noisier. The more daring you are, the bigger are rewards.

The nation is now fed with heavy cocktail of fake narratives, manipulated numbers and hefty benefits. Be it the top brass from PM to CMs, Niti Ayog or SEBI, media or corporate, most are signing a tune of making India great whereas in reality we are poorer than a decade before. The classification goes beyond GDP and ends up with ever increasing pollution and baffling hunger index and massive oil price surge.

A company like OLA scooters claims a booking of 500 crores when even the factory is yet to get a roof. Please don’t forget whatever ease of doing business index says, one has to go through a hell before the real production starts, not to mention extensive testing required before selling. No wonder Mr Think Big launched the biggest IPO in Indian history, made a perfect nationalist pitch by crying onscreen, ?went home laughing with millions stacked in his pockets while foolish public lost 50% of the wealth on the opening day itself. The current status says If you didn’t get one share of Paytm in IPO, you can now pay two shares with same money!!

Now how does all of this impact EVs!!.Electric vehicles in India are as potent as having a long range missile in an army arsenal. But guess what happens when a missile is misguided. The EV policy is heading in a same direction.

The myth that Evs are green and future fuel can be best explained from the latest data as placed in parliament, which clarifies that the power generation through coal & oil ?in India has further gone up to 76+% of total electricity production. Simply put, the level of damage caused to the environment by charging the battery is no less than fossil fuel as we would still be using electricity made on fossil fuel to charge the batteries.?Any thinking brain would make all public charging stations to run only on solar/ wind power. But in reality all DISCOMS are getting into public charging with some political leader trying to hog all the limelight with such dopey green initiatives.

?The government of the day has not learnt its lessons from telecom and solar industry, where all production in India has helped China reap in more benefits than the Indian economy. The Chinese have mastered the art of controlling the basic raw materials in all of such products.?The story remains the same as China controls over 85% of total cobalt & lithium reserves. ?So even if we come up with PLI schemes, the biggest indirect beneficiary shall still be China. ?

A misconception that has been rapidly spread by planners including all powerful Nitiayog is the falling cost of Lithium batteries. The recent data indicates the trend has been arrested due to massive increase in demand of base metals. The only way it seems EV can survive is subsidies. As witnessed all over the world the recent trends indicate, these types of subsidies have only helped a privileged class and likes of Elon Mask, at the expense of tax payers money. ?It is time to break another myth that only 15% pay taxes in India. The truth is that over 90% of commodities in India are taxed.

Another problem which has not been addressed is the how the batteries would be disposed off. In last thirty years despite regulations and laws, even the lead acid batteries are officially recycled to only 30%. Seems the talk of reduction in pollution is nothing but a mere propaganda as far as Indian way is concerned. It is estimated that China would have to deal with one million tones of decommissioned batteries by year 2025.?

So am I opposing the EV technology? No, not at all but it’s the way it has been dealt with is worrisome. Having a missile in one’s arsenal is great but if you don’t know how to guide it, you would end up killing your own people.

The senseless, directionless policy of EVs in India is on similar pitch. The way Lithium based EV market has exploded, world over, don’t be surprised to know that we would run out of Lithium stocks by 2040 itself.

We need to take cues from countries like Japan who are working on sodium ions batteries or step up research in graphene batteries that have fared better than Lithium based technology. Perhaps this is the best way to beat China than to sell dreams of making India a EV hub in future.

The most recent sales numbers of EVs are very encouraging with total of 40000 nos crossed for the first time. The E Rickshaw is accounting for 86% of total sales. Although it is encouraging but the design continue to be the most unreliable and unsafe. The design was direct copy of Chinese tricycle and its tragic that not a single Indian company could develop a better model. I am equally unsure the e rickshaw became popular because of its price and utility or the electric factor.

As the market are opening up, so are the sub standards batteries and incidents of vehicles catching up fire have started showing up. The regulations by govt are sloppy as ever. ?

The Govt should focus on two wheeler than four wheeler as infra structure issues would get limited as two wheeler are generally driven for small distances.

There can be many more policies that can really help India get an advantage in Ev market, but then who is bothered. The state of affairs can be best described by a recent advertisement: ?India’s first E scooter that doesn’t come with batteries, requires no charging.

We continue to sell dreams and many are buying it too!!