By Aman Shah
Until recently, the concept of electric vehicles (EVs) replacing combustion vehicles (CVs) seemed like a fantasy driven dream to people. Each year, we hear chunter about electric cars entering and conquering the market a certain number of years from now. It seems like the year has finally come. The newspapers in India have been filled with photos of cars in the past week due to the highly conversed and regarded Auto Expo 2018 in Delhi. The main focus of this Auto-Expo was market-ready electric vehicles. India has been witnessing an intensified interest in environment-friendly mobility solutions. However, along with the electric cars, a new word has been floating in the market Hybrid Vehicles.
Difference between hybrid, electric and conventional combustion vehicles
The conventional CVs are run solely by the internal combustion engines whereas EVs are propelled by one or more electric motors, using energy stored in the regenerative batteries. As the name suggests, hybrid vehicles use two or more distinct types of sources of power which include internal combustion engine and electric motor. In hybrid vehicles, the car uses power from either one or both of the power sources, as per the need. Thus, a combustion car may need only one fuel that is petrol or diesel, while hybrid cars need both, petrol/diesel as well as electricity.
Most of the hybrid cars in the market also have generators so that excess power obtained from the combustion engine can be stored in the battery, thus keeping it operational for a longer period of time. In hybrid cars, batteries are used for low-speed mobility of the vehicle and the internal combustion engine takes over from the electric motor as soon as the vehicle gets to higher speed. Most commonly, the internal combustion engine, the electric motor and gearbox are coupled by automatically controlled clutches.
Choice of electric over hybrid vehicles
The idea of the hybrid vehicles did actually appear several times over the 19th century, but it remained for Toyota to turn it into a practical enterprise with the Toyota Prius, introduced in Japan in 1997 and outside Japan in 2001. By 2007, Toyota had sold over one million of these worldwide. As of 2017, it became the worlds top-selling hybrid car with over 6.1 million units sold achieving a share of 61% of all the hybrids sold by Toyota.
But the problem still persists. The total emissions from hybrid vehicles are still at about 45% of the combustion vehicle. The electric vehicles are preferred over the hybrid vehicles due to the lowered emissions as well as the availability of electricity. Also, owners of an EV have the advantage of much lower running costs. The cost of electricity to charge an EV works out around a third as much per kilometre as buying petrol for the same vehicle.
According to a survey, EVs convert about 59%-62% of the electrical energy from the grid to power, at the wheels. Conventional petrol/diesel vehicles only convert about 17%21% of the energy stored in gasoline to power, at the wheels. Electric vehicles have considerably lesser moving parts than a conventional petrol/diesel car, making relatively lesser servicing needed for the same. This makes EVs a viable option in the market as compared to a CV causing its demand to rise swiftly.
Adaptation of markets and governments to electric vehicles
Since 2008, a resurgence of EV manufacturing occurred worldwide due to significant improvements in batteries, concerns about increasing petroleum prices, and the governments desire to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Several national governments have created tax credits, subsidies and other incentives to promote EVs.
In India, Union transportation minister Nitin Gadkari, in September 2017 said, Automakers have to move to electric vehicles, whether they like it or not He also put automakers on a notice that they had no option but to switch to the eco-friendly alternative to petrol and diesel. Under the new goods and services tax (GST) regime, EVs are being taxed at 12%, compared to the 28% that petrol and diesel vehicles are subject to. Hybrid vehicles are taxed at 43%. The government is also considering offering benefits that include zero import duties and lower electricity costs for EVs. In China, the government has set-up 213,903 public EV charging poles till 2017, highest in the world, making the country, a leader in the electric vehicle market. They sold a total of 777,000 new energy cars in 2017, a 53.3% year-on-year surge.
Companies competing against each other
A leader of the revolution in the market is Tesla Inc with its Tesla Roadster followed by Ford, Renault, Mitsubishi, Chevrolet, Volkswagen, BMW, Mercedes and Hyundai.
As evident from the heightened enthusiasm about electric vehicles at the Auto Expo in Delhi, automotive giants from around the world are slowly shifting to electric mobility solutions in the Indian market. It was seen that there were 28 Market Ready EVs Showcased at Auto Expo 2018.
In 2016, Ford announced that it would spend $4.5 billion by 2020 but soon, they realised the mistake of undermining the potential of this market and in January 2018 they announced to pump $11 billion into EVs in the next five years, with 24 hybrid and 16 fully electric vehicles which are to debut by 2022.
From the recent stories available, it can be implied that many more companies are expected to shift from CVs to EVs. The environment is set-up for electric vehicles, be it customer mindset or government regulations, the shift to a complete electric vehicles based economy is inevitable.
Featured Image Source: Visual Hunt