Electric (Pipe) Dreams

Are Electric cars really the answer to affordable and eco-friendly motoring in our country?

It’s no secret that the rising price of fuel in India, especially petrol, is pinching the average motorist. With 13 price hikes since the price of petrol was decontrolled a year-and-a-half ago, it’s understandably hurting the budget calculation and capabilities of the vast majority of consumers.

Needless to say, the constant hikes have also sparked off an ever increasing demand for diesel vehicles in our market, with various car makers struggling badly to cope with the sudden lopsided demand for diesels – after all, carefully laid out production plans take time to alter. Some analysts claim that sales are now skewed in a 70:30 ratio in favour of diesel.

So, not only is the customer hurting, but so are the manufacturers – as their stockyards begin to overflow with petrol vehicles, and long waitlists pile up on diesel ones. It makes you wonder how much longer the government can justify subsidizing the price of diesel. At some point, the subsidizes will have to go and the pricing mechanism decontrolled even for diesel – at which point diesel vehicles will fail to remain as attractive to customers as they are today.

What, then, is the future scenario for the Indian consumer and the automotive industry? Well, I recently got to sample the all-electric, and highly acclaimed, Nissan Leaf, which is one of the few cars designed from scratch to be electric-only. Nissan has been doing a lot of research and development in this field, and, in my discussions with their engineers, it seems that they are currently working on some exciting future prospects in the field of electric mobility. So, are electric cars the answer to our woes?

Well, of late, I’ve had this discussion with multiple individuals – about the relevance of electric cars in the Indian market, and why, despite electric and hybrid cars making such waves worldwide, they’re not sold in India? In one particularly spirited argument, a well-meaning enthusiast reckoned that electric cars could be the perfect answer for cheap and clean motoring for a vast majority of people in our land. But, despite having just driven the Leaf, which is one of the finest examples of an electric car currently, I still think he was being too optimistic and a tad ignorant of the ground realities.

Firstly, the government in India offers virtually no subsidy or advantage to encourage sales of electric or hybrid cars, whereas abroad such cars are provided various benefits by different governments – ranging from the exemption of congestion charge in London, to a cash subsidy in the US. In fact, in our country these cars are subjected to the same import duties as a normal car – thereby making them prohibitively expensive. For example, the Toyota Prius is priced at over Rs.30 lakhs on-road in our market. So it’s out of the question for the average consumer, while those who can afford it prefer to spend that kind of money on something from a luxury brand. This was also one of the primary reasons for the failure of the Reva in our market, as most buyers preferred buying a conventional entry-level car – not to mention that the Reva was probably a little ahead of its time.

Secondly, in case of electric cars, and even some hybrids, they require a certain amount of infrastructure, at least within city limits, to charge these cars – and no such infrastructure exists in our country. In fact, even in developed markets, such infrastructure is scarcely available and is coming up quite slowly. So, the consumer is stuck with the range available on a single charge, until he or she can get back to where their charging apparatus is installed. And this leads to a third difficulty, which is limited range since the car can only be used for short trips within the city. Unlike a conventional fueled car, it can’t simply be refilled and driven off – charging batteries takes a long time.

And, speaking of charging, keep in mind that we live in a country where about 400 million people have no access to electricity at all. And, even the people who do don’t have 24-hour uninterrupted power supply – even in the Capital. Now, considering that even the latest electric cars need at least 8 to 12 hours of continuous charging to charge them fully, this is probably going to be the biggest hurdle for consumers.

So, looking at it practically, I’m afraid that cars like the Leaf in India remain a brand-building exercise and technology showcase. People dreaming about driving good electric cars like the Leaf will have to wait a long, long time for it to become a practical reality.