Battery Metals

A month after India dropped the idea of an electric vehicle policy, the government’s think-tank NITI Aayog has tasked at least seven ministries with framing guidelines to encourage the use of such vehicles.

Once framed, the NITI Aayog will put these guidelines together as an action plan for promoting the use of electric vehicles (EVs), four people aware of the development said, requesting anonymity.

The government had earlier made a surprising U-turn on an EV policy after some carmakers protested that they were unprepared for an abrupt shift and that government policy should encourage all clean-fuel technologies. The government’s new plan suggests that it will continue to promote EVs, although it may not be in the form of a policy.

“It is a welcome move from the NITI Aayog and some kind of action plan or guidelines will be enough for the industry to move ahead with electric mobility,” said Suvranil Majumder, head, electric mobility project, International Finance Corp. “There has to be some synergy between certain ministries of the government when it comes to dealing with certain aspects of electric mobility.”

The ministries that have been asked to formulate guidelines are those of heavy industries, power, new and renewable energy, road transport and shipping and highways, earth sciences, urban affairs and information technology.

While the road transport ministry has been asked to form guidelines on non-fiscal incentives, public transportation and last-mile connectivity in the context of EVs and sustainable mobility solutions, the power ministry has been tasked with framing rules for charging infrastructure.

“We would have to get back to them (NITI Aayog) after a fortnight or so. Once every ministry concerned comes up with rules in their own domain, then NITI Aayog may put it as an action plan or consolidated guideline for electric vehicles,” said a senior official in one of the ministries cited above.

Queries sent to a NITI Aayog spokesperson on Friday remained unanswered till press time.

This will not be a policy but an action plan for promoting electric mobility in the country since the government is very serious about it, said a senior official in the ministry of power.

“Every ministry will form guidelines on certain aspects of EVs under its purview. For instance, we are working on guidelines related to charging infrastructure and things related to it,” said the official.

The Indian government is not in favour of procuring lithium from other countries and companies will have to source lithium for battery packs by entering an arrangement with countries that have lithium and cobalt deposits. This was clarified by NITI Aayog in a meeting with industry executives in late February.

“We were told that countries with reserves of lithium and cobalt may ask for incentives like free-trade agreements, which will not be beneficial for the country,” an industry executive with direct knowledge of the development said, requesting anonymity.

NITI Aayog will be a coordinating agency and its role will be limited to reviewing and monitoring the whole process and to working out solutions if there is an overlap between guidelines prepared by different ministries.

It is still not clear whether the action plan or final set of guidelines will replace the FAME (Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Hybrid and Electric Vehicles) scheme, which will end by 31 March.

US utility Pacific Power has secured approval from the Public Utility Commission of Oregon to implement three electric vehicle (EV) pilot projects.

Pacific Power will under the pilot initiatives:

Put customers behind the wheel. By providing information and services and sponsoring ride-and-drive events where consumers can get first-hand experience with EVs and chargers to make informed decisions about what is right for them.

Invest in Innovation by providing grants to help non-residential customers develop creative, community-driven electric transportation infrastructure projects. The utility will grant $1.5 million for projects that advance transportation electrification in areas such as workplace charging.

Install, own and operate seven charging sites, with each site featuring dual-standard DC fast chargers, and at least one Level 2 charging port in Oregon.

The pilots are an effort by Pacific Power to ensure that more than 50,000 EVs are in use in Oregon by 2020.

The utility is making use of the pilots in preparing its grid network interoperable with future consumer and regulatory demands, and business models.

For instance, increasing EV use will help reduce carbon emissions from the transport sector and help Pacific Power to meet carbon emission reduction mandates set under 2016 Clean Electricity and Coal Transition Act.

According to the Oregon Global Warming Commission, the transportation sector is the highest contributor to Oregon’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Stefan Bird, CEO at Pacific Power, said: “We are making the grid more efficient, cleaner, and more reliable.

“We are bringing even more renewable resources online in a smarter, more resilient grid that will reduce emissions from our power supply while keeping costs low.”

Pacific Power has plans to add 1,300MW of new wind generation, upgrade existing wind generation, and provide new transmission to support that generation.

The utility is investing $3.5 billion towards such initiatives and the rolling out of smart meters to shorten outage response time, while reducing overall energy costs to consumers.

Only by providing more and more convenient electric vehicle charging stations, the Macau government will make residents more willing to use sustainable energy powered vehicles, the Chairman of the Macau Ecological Society, Hoi Wai Tim told MNA

A few years ago, electric cars were viewed as nothing more than expensive toys. With long charging times, short travel ranges, and heavy batteries, they were hardly a practical alternative for their fossil fuel burning counterparts. But technology has evolved a great deal in the past few years and today, electric cars are rapidly taking over roads the world over.

Besides offering an eco-friendlier alternative to car commuters, the advancement of electric cars has also transformed a niche industry that was for the longest time dominated by those with the largest (and hence thirstiest) engines – supercars. Even luxury sedans and SUVs — such as Tesla’s Model S and Model X — boast of faster acceleration times than some of the world’s most prolific supercars, Ferraris and Lamborghinis included. Battery technology and energy recovery systems have evolved a great deal in the past five years or so. New companies such as Rimac, Vanda, Nio, and Genovation have joined in with stalwarts like Porsche, Aston Martin, and Tesla in creating the next generation of supercars.

While cars, thanks to their eye-watering top speeds and poster-worthy looks, are often the ones dominating headlines, they’re not the only mode of transportation currently undergoing a rEVolution. Here’s where the rest of the transportation industry stands in terms of going electric:

Planes

The chief problem faced by all-electric vehicles is that of energy storage. Since batteries have a much lower storage capacity of energy-per-unit-weight when compared to fossil fuels, they are required in large numbers for any feasible application in transportation, and hence add a lot of weight to the vehicle in question. While this may not be that much of an issue for, say, cars or buses, planes are a different story altogether. The energy required to power a commercial plane is colossal, and the need for reserve power in case of emergencies meant that, for a long while, electric engines were never a practical replacement for jet fuel. But many aeronautical companies, having started out with prototypes featuring hybrid engines, are closing in on all-electric planes.

The likes of Airbus, Boeing, and even NASA have, in association with startups like Zunum Aero and Wright Electric, developed several prototypes of wholly electric aeroplanes in the last year or so. Since then, however, electric planes have been limited to around 20-30 kW power outputs – a fraction of what it would take to power a modern-day commercial airliner. Hence, for now, several small aircraft, some of which can even carry a couple of passengers besides the pilot, are in development. A few companies, Airbus chief among them, have begun designing concepts of larger jets which will carry around 2 MW of energy on board. At the rate with which energy storage technology is advancing, it might take only a decade, or even lesser, for the first electric commercial jet to take flight.

Bikes

While electric two-wheelers have been around for years now, they were mostly all lightweight scooters in the past – they didn’t use much power, but couldn’t go very fast or very far either. But in the last decade or so, two-wheelers have undergone a revolution akin to their four-wheeled counterparts. The motorbike racing industry was catalysed when the legendary Isle of Man TT race inaugurated an electric-only segment way back in 2009. Since then, industry stalwarts like Honda and Yamaha have been joined by a host of newly founded companies in the performance bike industry.

The likes of Mission R, Lightning LS-218, Motoczysz E1pc, and Lito Sora have stormed onto the scene in much the same way as Tesla and Rimac in the car industry. Other sectors of the bike industry – such as commuter bikes, scooters, and dirt bikes – have also seen the entry of several promising new players. Companies like Zero Motorcycle, Luna Cycles, and India’s own Ather Energy and Tork Motorcycles are just some of the brands now manufacturing affordable and practical bikes powered by zero-emission engines.

Buses

An increased use of public transport, such as buses, has rightly been touted as an important step in combating the rise of vehicular pollution. But the effectiveness of such transport options has been undercut to a certain degree by their highly-polluting diesel engines. Today, however, a few manufacturers are combating this problem with buses that are run entirely on electric power. Hong Kong’s BYD, China’s Changsha Sunda New Energy Vehicles Technology, and India’s Tata Motors are just a few of the companies helping the world transition to an all-electric mode of public transportation.

In the city of Shenzhen, for example, all the 16,359 buses plying the roads are electric. Closer home, the government’s FAME (Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Electric Vehicles) India project has helped drive down the prices of electric buses, thereby increasing adoption in the country’s biggest cities. Due to this initiative, we can expect to see several electric buses on the roads of cities like Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Delhi, and Mumbai within the next year.

Besides those mentioned above, there are several other transportation sectors being driven by electric power. Electric trucks, for instance, are steadily becoming more commonplace thanks to the efforts of companies like Workhorse, E-Force, Daimler, and BYD. The relatively recent announcement of Tesla’s Semi and the spawn of several new OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers) across the world has led certain analysts to predict that the electric truck market will record 2.25 million unit sales by 2025. Combining riderless vehicles  Electric trains – which have been around for more than a century and a half – have, along with hybrid engines, almost entirely replaced locomotives powered solely by fossil fuels. From all this, it is evident that the complete conversion of nearly all transportation modes from fossil fuels to electric power is only a matter of time.