
India to order taxi aggregators like Uber, Ola to go electric - abhi3
https://in.reuters.com/article/us-india-electric-autos-exclusives/exclusive-india-to-order-taxi-aggregators-like-uber-ola-to-go-electric-idINKCN1T71DU
======
ShirsenduK
* Uber/Ola do not own cars, and the owners take out loans to get one. Electric cars can be expensive to be financed for that income group. Uber's endgame is to own self-driving cars and not a normal car, atleast that was the dream :).

* Indian car companies do not have electric cars (a real car can go for atleast 200kms a charge/refill).

* A car factory(even non-electric) would take atleast 5 years to start churning cars.

* Even in that case, it will have to import 40% of the cost ie batteries as India cannot make them. If it starts today, it can in 10 years.

* Import duties of fully assembled, SKD and CKD electric cars is very high makes them uncompetitive to petrol/diesel cars.

* Direct importing is not viable as it requires certification.

* 60% of India's electric supply is coal based.

And to top it;

* Upto 50% of pollution a car will cause is done during production of the car ie before even a kilometre has been driven. Replacing lots of good working cars from the street is not environment friendly.

~~~
ardit33
Nice analysis.

The point that many people make: "* Upto 50% of pollution a car will cause is
done during production of the car ie before even a kilometre has been driven.
Replacing lots of good working cars from the street is not environment
friendly."

It is not just overall pollution, but where and how it is done that it is
important. There is a huge difference between controlled pollution, from a
factory away from large cities, and thousands of cars spewing emissions right
into the core of urban centers. The second would cause more direct health
issues and potentially deaths and overall unpleasantness.

~~~
vkou
> The point that many people make: "* Upto 50% of pollution a car will cause
> is done during production of the car ie before even a kilometre has been
> driven. Replacing lots of good working cars from the street is not
> environment friendly."

You're completely wrong. This may be the case for a weekend vehicle that is
sent to the junkyard before you put 30,000 km on it, but is 100% wrong for a
taxi, that drives >300,000 miles over its life.

It takes 6-12 tonnes of CO2e to produce a car. [1]

Taking 35 mpg, every 10,000 miles driven is 285 gallons of gasoline. 1 gallon
of gasoline produces ~8.9 kg of CO2e. That's 2.5 tonnes per 10,000 miles
driven.

After 50,000 miles driven, the typical car breaks even with its manufacturing
emissions.

The average taxi (in NYC) puts on 70,000 miles. Per YEAR. [2] In a single
year, it's fuel emissions exceed manufacturing emissions.

If you want good return-on-investment, taxis are the first vehicles we should
be regulating. They drive a lot more than the average car.

[1] [https://www.theguardian.com/environment/green-living-
blog/20...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/green-living-
blog/2010/sep/23/carbon-footprint-new-car)

[2] [https://www.quora.com/How-many-miles-does-a-NYC-taxi-do-
in-i...](https://www.quora.com/How-many-miles-does-a-NYC-taxi-do-in-its-life-
as-a-taxi)

~~~
ShirsenduK
Electric cars produce more CO2 during manufacturing.

Indian taxis/cars on Indian roads do worse.

India's electric market is 60% coal.

"If you want good return-on-investment, taxis are the first vehicles we should
be regulating. They drive a lot more than the average car." \- Who is the you
here? The car driver who is trying to make ends meet?

~~~
vkou
> Electric cars produce more CO2 during manufacturing.

How much more? Sources, please. The internet tells me that adding an 85 KWH
battery in a Tesla adds ~1 tonne of CO2e. [1]

Tesla, as a whole (Which includes non-manufacturing, but does not include the
carbon cost, of say, smelting the steel that went into their cars, or
Panasonic manufacturing their batteries), produced ~300,000 tonnes of CO2e in
2018. They shipped ~250,000 vehicles in 2018.[2]

Bloomberg claims something completely different, but doesn't provide any
concrete numbers. [3] The study it seems to cite is [4], which claims that a
Tesla's battery is ~15 tonnes of CO2e, if manufactured in a factory powered by
50% coal power. There seem to be no other studies on the subject.

Panasonic, which manufactures Tesla batteries, is doing some work to make
their batteries carbon neutral [5][6]. It's unclear how much volume this
factory produces, and what the emissions of their other factories are.

> Indian taxis/cars on Indian roads do worse.

This also means that the existing ICE taxis don't have a long prospective
life, and at least 40% of them are due to be replaced by 2026. It's why this
legislature is coming into play in 2026, and not in 2020.

> India's electric market is 60% coal.

Thanks to Carnot efficiency, even if your electric car is powered by a coal
plant, it is still more carbon efficient than powering it with gasoline. Your
V6 engine doesn't reach the temperature differential that utility coal plants
do. Electric vehicles also have near-zero-cost regenerative breaking, which
increases waste energy, that would otherwise go into heating brakes in a non-
hybrid ICE.

> Who is the you here?

Someone who is comparing the environmental benefit to the monetary cost of
switching from ICE to electric. You get a lot more reductions, for the same
dollar spent, from electrifying taxis, then from electrifying heavily-used
personal vehicles. You get more reductions from electrifying heavily-used
personal vehicles, then lightly-used weekend vehicles.

Pick the lowest-hanging fruit first.

[1]
[https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Ska839...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Ska839NYN2kJ:https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2016/04/22/the-
carbon-footprint-of-tesla-manufacturing/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

[2] [https://www.environmentalleader.com/2019/04/tesla-
emissions-...](https://www.environmentalleader.com/2019/04/tesla-emissions-
report/)

[3] [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-16/the-
dirt-...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-16/the-dirt-on-
clean-electric-cars)

[4] [https://www.thegwpf.com/new-study-large-co2-emissions-
from-b...](https://www.thegwpf.com/new-study-large-co2-emissions-from-
batteries-of-electric-cars/)

[5]
[https://www.panasonic.com/global/consumer/battery/primary_ba...](https://www.panasonic.com/global/consumer/battery/primary_batteries/sustainability.html)

[6] [https://www.panasonic-batteries.com/en/news/panasonic-
enviro...](https://www.panasonic-batteries.com/en/news/panasonic-environment-
vision-2050-our-commitments-become-carbon-neutral)

~~~
ShirsenduK
Indian cars/manufacturing/importing has different economics and pollution
impacts. You are free do your own research and make up your mind.

I am not against electric cars, I want them. I am against the idea to replace
cars which have already contributed to significant pollution being removed
from road.

The lowest hanging fruit for me is to get US and other top polluters to reduce
pollution. India and China are doing good already as they are increasing more
green cover. The reality is the India car drivers cannot afford the cheaper
electric cars, forget about Tesla.

~~~
vkou
> Indian cars/manufacturing/importing has different economics and pollution
> impacts. You are free do your own research and make up your mind.

No, you don't get to go ahead and do that. The burden is on you to provide
evidence for your claim, not on the person you are talking to.

> I am against the idea to replace cars which have already contributed to
> significant pollution being removed from road.

Didn't you say that taxis in India don't last as long as they do in the West?
If so, won't it be possible to electrify 40% of them by 2026, through natural
attrition? The whole point of this law is to give a heads-up on a multi-year
process.

> The lowest hanging fruit for me is to get US and other top polluters to
> reduce pollution.

Agreed. The West has had modest per-capita pollution reductions, but needs to
go much further then that. As does China. (It's overall per-capita pollution
has matched that of the European Union. If you look at its urban areas, alone,
they pollute just as much, per-capita, as the US.)

China is no longer a developing country. It's a 350-million person developed
country, with all the same carbon footprint as any western economy, sitting on
top of a 1-billion person developing country.

> India and China are doing good already as they are increasing more green
> cover

Increasing green cover isn't anywhere close to enough. If we tore down every
city, uprooted every field, and covered the entire planet with trees, we'd
offset only a few years of global emissions.

------
amrrs
This is what you call a PR thing by Government. Why? * 2019 - 2026 - That's
after (5+2) years which means it makes it easy for this current Government to
pitch it before next election.

* Everyone knows Uber and Ola don't own their fleet so who'll be accountable?

* In Bangalore, Ola was banned for a month or so for a policy violation, only to be revoked just in 24 hours citing Public / Traffic / Driver's livelihood.

* Uber and Ola drivers in cities like Bangalore are currently not even getting time for their food (lunch) and for them to sit aside and recharge the car seems another big 'would they ?'

* Any news on Public Policy reg. Internet companies hit front page.

Why not the government make better Public transport system? Why don't they
increase the frequency of Government Bus ? Why don't they electrify Public
transport?

None of these would hail the Government as Elon Musk ish visionary other than
this one.

~~~
giis
>* Everyone knows Uber and Ola don't own their fleet so who'll be accountable?

Who says so? Have you read about tie-up with Tata for EV ?
[https://www.indiatimes.com/auto/current/tata-nano-
electric-m...](https://www.indiatimes.com/auto/current/tata-nano-electric-may-
debut-with-ola-cabs-1000-examples-to-join-fleet-368361.html)

Try to understand ground reality before making false claims.

Btw, elections over just ~15 days back, if this just PR stunt, it makes more
sense announce it during 7 week long election not after that.

~~~
captn3m0
That’s an article from 2 weeks back. (24 May) of an announcement of the deal.
The ground reality today is the drivers own the fleet, with both Ola and Uber
financing it to some degree.

------
yeldarb
How would this work? As far as I know neither of them owns the vehicles in
their “fleet”.

Do they just provide incentives for drivers to buy electric vehicles? Or is
the government actually expecting them to put company-owned electric vehicles
on the streets?

~~~
est31
How they change their fleets is their business. They could give higher
compensation to people with EV's. They could treat ICE as if they weren't
around when the maximum number of ICE cars is on the road.

~~~
wuliwong
>How they change their fleets is their business

Why is this obvious? If the composition of their fleets is not their business
why is it clear that the way they manage their fleets is? I would actually
assume that there are probably loads of regulations that already govern the
ways Uber can manage its fleet?

~~~
toomuchtodo
If they are regulated, it should come as no surprise when additional
regulation is imposed. And they are regulated.

------
ramshanker
So let's jump start the beginning of "S Curve of Electric Adoption" going for
cars. 2 or 3 years back, Minister of Transport Mr. Nitin Gadkari had dropped a
bombshell right in the middle of some mega Car Event. "I am NOT going to allow
you to sell ICE post 2030". Audience was like ....... Awwwww

Battery Mini-Riksaw are already dominating many of the small towns in India
right now. Registration for Diesel Tri-wheelers is already stopped in some
capital cities. Petrol may be on the way out too within 5 years.

------
kumarvvr
This is a good thing. But I really hope India invests a lot in public
transportation and related infrastructure, especially in tier 2 and tier 3
cities.

~~~
rrrazdan
We are. We are building metros in n>10 cities now.

------
mariushn
7 years from now is quite late. Would prefer a 2-3 year deadline, along with
plans on how cities will provide chargers before that deadline.

~~~
tracker1
Where do you anticipate all these cars being made? What about the cars that
are currently owned, where the sunk cost of mfg was already paid and it's more
economical to continue using vs. replace?

For example, if the U.S. required half of all cars sold be EV, then there
would be no cars available to buy for 2-3 years just to ramp up production
alone. Millions of jobs lost during that time too.

~~~
mariushn
We're talking only about ride hailing cars, right? Not all.

~~~
tracker1
It's only a matter of scale, in example to emphasis that the impact is not
necessarily trivial as suggested.

------
nonamechicken
Some more info:

>EV sales in India grew three-fold to 3,600 in the year ended March but still
account for about 0.1% of the 3.3 million diesel and gasoline cars sold in the
country over the period, industry data showed. China's electric car sales,
meanwhile, rose 62% in 2018 to 1.3 million vehicles.

>Motorcycles and scooters sold for commercial purposes, like food delivery or
for use by e-commerce companies, will also need to be electric from April
2023, the person added.

>Its Ola Electric Mobility unit in March raised ₹400 crore ($58 million) from
investors including venture capital fund Tiger Global and Matrix Partners.

>It also raised $300 million from Hyundai Motor and Kia Motors and formed a
strategic partnership with the South Korean duo to help build India-specific
EVs.

[https://www.livemint.com/politics/policy/india-set-to-
order-...](https://www.livemint.com/politics/policy/india-set-to-order-uber-
ola-other-taxi-aggregators-to-go-electric-1559820588642.html)

------
InTheArena
Having just been in India, I can safely say that Uber in India is one of the
worst uber experiences I have seen, independently of this change.

India's car policies will make this very difficult.

Right now the "made in India" car restrictions means that India doesn't share
car infrastructure with the rest of the world. From what a local was telling
me, car manufacturers typically transfer their tooling from old product lines
in other parts of the world when assembly lines are re-tooled to build cheaper
India only vehicles.

Thankfully, the big cities are so congested that the older model cars with
older model safety systems, but this approach won't work with EVs, which are
not yet mainstream in the rest of the world.

My guess is that a modern version of a tuk-tuk would be ideal, but battery
production is going to be a very big problem for this. India has the 3rd
largest automobile market and a low level of vehicle adoption, but until they
fix infrastructure, I don't see it happening.

------
naruvimama
India has aggressive climate change commitments. It is setting long term
expectations and providing guidelines to the biggest influencers [Uber/Ola].
It gives an indicator to the manufacturers, infra providers, service providers
and the end consumers on what to expect. It is in line with their 2025 goals.

------
Glench
While I don't know about this specific policy, I'm happy that the push to
electric vehicles (and hopefully carbon-free energy) is happening worldwide.
This is one of the big areas we need to do absolutely immediately.

Otherlab founder Saul Griffith has a great analysis about why electrifying
cars and more of our technology is so necessary in the US here:
[https://medium.com/otherlab-news/decarbonization-and-
gnd-b8d...](https://medium.com/otherlab-news/decarbonization-and-
gnd-b8ddd569de16)

> "Without changing the size of our homes, or our cars, or fundamentally
> changing the fabric of our lives, a fully electrified energy economy using
> non-carbon fuel sources would require less than half of the total amount of
> energy we use today."

Your next car should be electric.

------
yatharth_1
To everyone recommending adding more restrictions to the cars that can be
driven for rideshare companies, please, I don't know where you live but India
is not at all as rich as your country. There's no infrastructure to support
electric cars not to mention no drivers who can actually buy it. Here's an
example, today I rode Uber for one journey for one hour and paid 500 Rs (7
USD). In US I pay more than 10USD for a few miles (may be 15 minutes) only. Do
you really think this guy is going to buy an electric car?

Yes it's a PR campaign, elections may be over but reelected government has to
show that its better than past and what better way to make empty promises,
which cost nothing.

Every point made by ShirsenduK is to the mark about conditions in India.

------
vishnu_ks
Ola recently raised $56 million to spin out a dedicated business that focus
only on electric vehicles. In March, Power Minister R. K. Singh said the
government was aiming to ensure that at least 30% of the country's vehicles
run on electricity by 2030, a significant dilution of the earlier-stated goal
of an all-EV fleet by that year.

[https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/28/ola-ev-business-ola-
electr...](https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/28/ola-ev-business-ola-electric-
mobility/)

------
plibither8
This might be irrelevant to the topic at hand, but the cover image of the news
article that the reader first sees is very misleading. It depicts nothing that
might hint towards the article talking about Uber, Ola or electrification of
their fleets. Yes, there appears to be a traffic jam (which in an indirect way
can be linked to Uber and Ola being public modes of transport), but that is
because there is a road-show going on related to an election.

------
KaoruAoiShiho
Are there domestic EV brands that are doing well there? Or is the expectation
that Ola will fund it itself? Or buy foreign brands?

------
trimbo
Anyone know roughly how many hours various electric cars can go in a city
taxi-driving setting before needing to be recharged?

~~~
oyebenny
Aside from the fact that this is not an impressive goal, hopefully by that
time we have electric cars with solar panels anyway.

~~~
marsRoverDev
I don't think that solar panels will be capable of generating enough power to
make much of an impact on an electric car's mileage. Happy to be corrected.

~~~
gvb
_The standard solar panel has an input rate of around 1000 Watts per square
meter, however on the solar panels available at present you will only gain
roughly 15-20% efficiency at best. Therefore if your solar panel was 1 square
meter in size, then it would likely only produce around 150-200W in good
sunlight._ [1]

 _For example: 2 square meter panel x 1000 = 2000 x 0.20 (20% efficiency
panel) = 400. 400 x 5 hours of sun hours = 2000 Watt hours per day._ [ibid]

 _In 2012, the EPA range for the 60 kWh battery pack model was 208 mi (335 km)
and the 85 kWh battery was 265 miles (426 km)._ [2]

A Tesla gets about 3.5 miles per kWh, so you would be able to get about 7
miles of driving distance per day (5 hours of sunlight) of charging.

Ref:

[1] [https://www.theecoexperts.co.uk/solar-panels/how-much-
electr...](https://www.theecoexperts.co.uk/solar-panels/how-much-electricity)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Model_S#Battery](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Model_S#Battery)

~~~
clouddrover
The Sono Sion gets 34 kilometres (21 miles) per day from solar charging.

------
throwmex
Is it just me that thinks whenever a western media writes an article about
India, they show an image of India in the worst possible way.

For ex: Why does this article have to show a picture of a political rally ?

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Because the rally is collocated with a traffic jam?

~~~
praneshp
Ah, I think your parent comment should have asked for a non-stupid reason. An
electric car is going to be in a traffic jam as well.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Yes, but it won't be spewing out any noxious gases while stranded in traffic
(neither would a hybrid or a shut off idle car, but none of those are in that
picture).

------
olivermarks
Seems crazy to me. Most taxi and uber/gypsy cab drivers run hybrid Priuses
because they are the most cost effective and economical vehicles for this
purpose in stop and go traffic. Insisting on EV's when charging tech is so
inefficient and scarce seems hugely problematic for the foreseeable future.
Seems a lousy investment for anyone wanting to make money providing a driving
service through one of the mobile platform middlemen.

~~~
najarvg
Your point is well-taken but there is an incredibly limited number of hybrid
vehicles in India (only 2 actually) -
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_vehicle_industry_in...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_vehicle_industry_in_India)

But given the age of India's electricity infrastructure and the huge
challenges, this initiative would definitely present large challenges. The
good news is that there is political will and a general absence of politically
powerful retrograde lobbies to stop this from happening if tried sincerely.

~~~
monksy
Good luck getting a charge with the blackouts.

Also.. most of the ubers (aka taxis) that I was in were suzuki Wagon Rs.

------
dang
Url changed from [https://techcrunch.com/2019/06/06/india-electric-
vehicles-20...](https://techcrunch.com/2019/06/06/india-electric-
vehicles-2026-uber-ola/), which points to this.

------
LargeWu
Based on Uber's history, they'll probably cook up some scheme to fraudulently
register combustion vehicles as electric or find some other shady way around
the regulation.

~~~
kinkrtyavimoodh
Ridiculous government regulation needs Uber style treatment.

India is faaar from any electic car infrastructure. Like another comment said
above, it's purely a PR move by the govt.

~~~
bhaavan
Yeah, let's not attempt do anything, because it's not perfect. /s

~~~
kinkrtyavimoodh
Grandstanding about doing something is very different from actually doing it.
Grandstanding is free. That is what this 'reported order' is. To some extent
it's the government's job to do this kind of PR, but we don't have to buy it
hook line and sinker.

When the government does something concrete to boost the infrastructure, I
will be the first to applaud.

~~~
shripadk
> When the government does something concrete to boost the infrastructure, I
> will be the first to applaud.

Yeah building roads and highways at record pace are not concrete enough to
boost infrastructure right?

[https://www.businesstoday.in/sectors/infra/modi-
government-c...](https://www.businesstoday.in/sectors/infra/modi-government-
constructed-73-percent-more-highways-compared-upa-
last-4-years/story/279060.html)

"So far, the incumbent government has constructed a total of 28,531 km
national highways since FY 2014-15, contrasting with 16,505 km by the previous
government up to FY 2013-14, a clear gain of an astounding 12,026 kms, the
Financial Express reported."

~~~
kinkrtyavimoodh
What has building roads and highways got to do with switching from gasoline to
electric cars?

~~~
shripadk
I thought you talked about physical infrastructure (roads and highways) needed
for cars to ply on. After re-reading your comment I realised you are talking
about infrastructure needed specifically for electric cars (like charging
stations). My bad! Apologise for that!

Either ways, I don't see how the Government can help in this! Isn't this the
prerogative of the companies manufacturing their EV to setup? The only place
where Government can help is providing land and electric power for these
charging stations. That should not be a big deal.

