
India authorises sale of electric vehicles without batteries - baybal2
https://www.electricmotorengineering.com/india-sale-of-electric-vehicles-without-batteries/
======
taneq
From [https://www.indiatoday.in/auto/latest-auto-
news/story/morth-...](https://www.indiatoday.in/auto/latest-auto-
news/story/morth-allows-the-sale-of-electric-vehicles-without-batteries-
everything-you-need-to-know-1710727-2020-08-13)

> The amendment will allow OEMs to sell batteries separately or with
> subscription models, and will also encourage private players to join in as
> well, boosting the grass-roots of the electric ecosystem.

So it's about allowing competition in battery providers and allowing battery
leasing. This is a good move because not only does it open up the industry and
hopefully drive overall prices down, but it decouples the prices of vehicle
and "fuel", making it easier to compare directly with petrol-powered vehicles.

Also, by incentivizing vehicle designs with removable (and thus swappable)
batteries, it makes taxis and other high demand use cases more practical
without needing widespread fast charging infrastructure.

~~~
deepGem
Better place, An Israeli startup tried electric cars with battery swapping and
failed miserably.

So, decoupling battery from the car and allowing better competition in the
battery space might fly. Car makers need not be bothered by the battery tech
and can just focus on making good electric motors, since most of the car parts
are from other vendors anyways.

However, the decoupling might not be all that rosy as Musk has demonstrated
that safety is best achieved with total vertical integration. Even Tesla tried
battery swapping but gave up.

This might work really well in 2 wheelers though. The existing bike
manufacturers won't have to retool their factories by much to replace the
engine with a motor and the batteries can be probably swapped in and out of
the under seat space or something like that.

~~~
CarbyAu
I am inclined to agree with you.

Removable batteries for cars has a LOT of bulk and weight to deal with. More a
"service interval" like action rather than a daily event. Still handy to have
but not nearly so much incentive in the market.

But for motorbikes and scooters, maybe it could work. Especially small city
scooter(125cc equivalent) work.

Mind you, I am picturing a dystopian future whereby all the UberEats-like
delivery scooter people keep getting their batteries stolen...

edit: streamline

~~~
deepGem
Theft is a major issue and all anti-theft measures will result in increased
cost. One possible option is for the battery manufacturers to make the stolen
batteries useless by short circuiting them or something like that. So there is
total deterrence against theft.

~~~
AdmiralGinge
I wonder how much it'd cost for them to license a tiny part of the low-
frequency radio spectrum? The one for BBC Radio 4 covers most of the country
with a single transmitter for example, using this old-school technology you
could report your battery's serial number as stolen (with the appropriate
authentication) and the company would broadcast a signal to short it out. This
would be much harder to defeat than an internet-based solution I think.

~~~
rowanG077
It's trivial to defeat with a faraday cage.

~~~
AdmiralGinge
Not if you want it to actually fit in the socket of a car or bike.

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aetherspawn
This is actually a really great direction.

Imagine - a software and hardware standard developed for batteries that allows
generic installation/communication between the vehicle and the battery pack.

And the realization that EV's may be multi-decade investments (and need to be
high quality to last) if the batteries are replaced each decade. Electric
motors don't wear down with kms like petrol motors do - how often have you
seen luxury cars wrecked where the interiors lasted a lot longer than the
driveline (pretty often i.e. BMW Audi)?

Why shouldn't people be able to buy high quality interiors and put new
batteries in them.

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atburrow
Why was there a regulation in place preventing this in the first place? I
don’t get it.

~~~
LeifCarrotson
How does it pass safety regulations without an integral part of the vehicle?
How do they publish performance data if it can't move on itself?

Not that those are insurmountable obstacles, but a law that says "You can't
claim your vehicle does 200 miles on a charge if it doesn't include a battery"
or "You can't claim your vehicle is safe in a frontal crash because the
battery absorbs some of the energy except you're not including the battery"
don't seem unreasonable.

~~~
gruez
Can't you just design/test it with OEM batteries, but allow the end user to
buy it without the OEM batteries?

~~~
umeshunni
That's pretty much what this law allows now

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Abishek_Muthian
This is nice, if the battery spec is standardised and 3rd party battery makers
can directly supply to the end users; not just to the OEMs. Barriers to entry
for power delivery systems should be brought down as well incl. Smart Power
Grids so that startups can enter the space in order to improve power delivery
to the end users, at the end of the day economics of owning an EV in India
should be favourable for the consumer to invest in it.

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pkphilip
India currently has a law forcing the scrapping of all petrol and diesel
vehicles after 15 years of manufacture.
[https://www.financialexpress.com/auto/car-news/cars-older-
th...](https://www.financialexpress.com/auto/car-news/cars-older-
than-10-years-to-be-scrapped-govts-new-scrappage-policy-how-it-will-affect-
you/1294836/)

This is unnecessary as it will force perfectly usable vehicles to be scrapped
and it would come at a huge cost to the environment.

Ideally it would have been good to allow this change for internal combustion
engines as well so as to allow ICE cars to swap out their engines for more
fuel efficient engines.

~~~
captn3m0
15 year old cars in India are tinboxes, with very little margin for safety. No
airbags for eg. Maybe once we actually start manufacturing cars that are safe,
we can turn this off after a decade.

~~~
pkphilip
You can still buy new cars off the lot right now without airbags or any safety
features. And of course, trucks and commercial vehicles rarely come with these
safety features in any case.

Also, this scrapping law applies even for vehicles with all safety features..
including from companies such as Mercedes, BMW, VW etc.

I would think that it makes perfect sense to scrap vehicles - no matter how
young/old, if it seriously fails an inspection or if the pollution levels from
the vehicle is too bad - and there are existing "fitness" tests for this, and
so why scrap vehicles which are well maintained?

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knolax
I feel like in practice people will just find ways to skirt around the law.
Who's gonna scrap a perfectly good BMW.

~~~
pkphilip
The new law that is being put into motion requires that all petrol and diesel
vehicles be scrapped in 15 years no matter their condition. So if you have BMW
in mint condition and serviced regularly - but it is 15 years old? well, tough
luck, it won't be allowed to ply on the roads.

[https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/auto/miscellaneous/govt-...](https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/auto/miscellaneous/govt-
proposes-scrapping-of-vehicles-older-than-15-years/articleshow/70401198.cms)

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Gabrielfair
Can someone help me understand how this will help the adoption when they still
have to buy the expensive batteries

~~~
mattnewton
It will allow companies to compete above their scale if they don’t own huge
battery operations, and probably force standard battery interfaces / easy
customer install. That could make swapping batteries practical depending on
the design.

~~~
thewhitetulip
Considering that the ruling party is BJP (equivalent to US Republicans), this
move will directly help Ambani & Adani.

There won't be any tight competition or open interface, it'll be a monopoly by
the two business groups who support him the most.

~~~
ra7
> Considering that the ruling party is BJP (equivalent to US Republicans)

There are many things wrong with the BJP, but they are not really equivalent
to the Republican Party. This is a lazy comparison at best, disingenuous at
worst. Their economic, environmental policies and even social issues are
completely different than the Republicans.

~~~
addicted
Yeah. The Modi government/BJP is equivalent to right wing authoritarian
governments around the world. Tories in the UK, Netanyahu’s government in
Israel, etc.

The Republican Party is on its own little island far far away from any other
normal political party in the world. For example, the Republican Party is the
only major democratic political party in the entire world that denies the
existence of anthropogenic climate change. There are major right wing
political parties worldwide that may claim the costs of doing anything exceeds
the benefits or that we need to wait for better solutions, etc but no major
party denies the basic scientific fact of it happening the way the Republicans
do.

There is also other stuff like the prevalence of young earth creationism, the
overt religiosity, the lack of any economic principles (e.g. just see their
rhetoric on deficits when there is a Democrat in charge vs what they do when
they are in charge) etc that sets them apart from major right wing political
parties worldwide.

~~~
thewhitetulip
> lack of any economic principles (e.g. just see their rhetoric on deficits
> when there is a Democrat in charge vs what they do when they are in charge)
> etc that sets them apart from major right wing political parties worldwide.

You literally described six mismanaged years of BJP in India

They did EVERYTHING which they opposed during Congress's time

They opposed FDI when in opposition And now they approved FDI in everything
including defence manufacturing

There even was a site called modilies.com containing all such listing of
things he opposed as CM which he is doing as PM

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dn3500
I got a chuckle out of the photo they used to illustrate the story.

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CarbyAu
If they can do this for one highly complex, many moving parts, integrated
product.... do it for phones.

And standardise recycling while you're at it.

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alexose
We need an open source, modular, convenient swappable battery + BMS design.
Something that end users can pick up and drop in their vehicle of choice.

Something like the Gogoro battery, but with flexibility for larger vehicles.

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known
Sounds rational since existing car owners prefer to covert to EVs
[https://www.bharatmobi.com/faqs/](https://www.bharatmobi.com/faqs/)

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hathym
Off topic, but why not a battery standard for all cars that will make charging
almost instant by switching them just like we do with toys?

~~~
speedgoose
Swapping a battery is simply a lot more complex than charging it.

Renault tried it with the Fluence in Israel, it stopped. The Zoé has been
designed to have easy battery swaps but it's not used.

Tesla did some demos in the past but they didn't explore more.

However Nio still believes in this solution, with proprietary batteries, so if
they are very successful in China some others may try again.

~~~
newyankee
Actually in Indian market the primary target audience i believe is 2 and 3
wheelers, which have smaller batteries and shorter ranges. China has already
converted most of such fleet to electric. Due to lack of capability in
producing batteries locally in India as well as geopolitical issues hampering
China imports and dependency, this is one policy designed to make adoption
cheaper.

Indian ICE manufacturers never had the vision to create an EV industry at
home, they are very reactive in nature. Only Tata, Mahindra have some
capability and most of the 2 wheeler manufacturers were importing almost all
the important components from China.

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867-5309
"excluding" may have been more appropriate than "without"

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afrojack123
Now I can drive my Tesla around with a hydrogen fuel and fuel cells.

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speedgoose
Why would you do that though?

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newen
Why not?

~~~
speedgoose
Hydrogen is expensive and not convenient for cars.

~~~
afrojack123
Batteries are ~$3/KWH. The natural gas that hydrogen comes from is only
$.50/KWH.

~~~
speedgoose
What about the hydrogen charging station?

~~~
afrojack123
Modify existing gas stations to supply hydrogen instead.

~~~
speedgoose
I was thinking about the cost of hydrogen fueling stations compared to
electric fast chargers.

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xenospn
How long before we have cars exploding because someone, somewhere, tried
cutting corners and jerry-rigged a DIY battery in their car to save some
money?

