
India plans massive shift to electric cars - jseliger
https://www.techinasia.com/india-plans-massive-shift-to-electric-cars
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pdog
Makes sense. India has just 32 vehicles for every 1,000 people (compared to
the 800 vehicles per 1,000 people in the United States and 140 vehicles per
1,000 people in China)[1].

If you're going to mobilize 1 billion people, you may as well "leapfrog" the
internal combustion engine and move straight to electric vehicles.

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_vehicles_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_vehicles_per_capita)

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kumarm
What India needs is better public and mass transport and not improved
vehicles/1000 people.

India has 4 times the population of US and 1/4 the area of US (approximately).
If you consider those facts India nearly has way too many vehicles/square mile
(considering 2 wheeler and 3 wheelers that run on gas).

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throwaway23498
I'm not entirely sure if this is scalable. Do we (as in the world) have enough
reserves of Lithium for this to be possible ? There is also the question of
trade balance (presumably with China/Japan as well as upstream Lithium
miners). Add to this, India barely has power for normal domestic consumption;
even in Bangalore, the ostensible "Silicon valley" of India, power cuts for an
hour or two is a daily affair.

Environmental solutions, incl. solar, are okay for assuaging the guilt about
wrecking the environment (and India is totally wrecked), but frankly it's not
clear if any of these are really scalable. This appears to me as another PR
stunt pulled by the new regime in charge.

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Gravityloss
There might be something else than lithium running out, like cobalt. On the
other hand, if you're willing to go with somewhat less range, you can go with
lithium iron phosphate.

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Gibbon1
> lithium iron phosphate

Far as I can tell, lithium iron phosphate battery technology is sustainable
over geologic time scales. Unlike other things that require minerals that are
rapidly being depleted and will be low supply and expensive in 50 years.

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danans
I think electrification of 2 stroke motorcycles and auto rickshaws makes more
sense in the near term, both from a cost perspective (smaller batteries), and
because they are disproportionate contributors to local air pollution. They
could also be well suited for battery swap as a recharging method.

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reacharavindh
One good thing about India is attitude towards public transportation. One city
to another is [easier/cheaper/safer] by train/bus than a car for most people.
I wish the Govt invested more on core infrastructure and (1) Add more trains
(2) introduce high-speed routes (3) Fix the IRCTC system so that people can
reliably book tickets. More cars /1000 people is not a model that would work
for highly dense and populous nation like India. There is simply no space for
US like Inter-state roads in Indian cities. Plus, it is easier on the
environment to invest in public infrastructure than adding more cars.

Growing up in India, I have always thought about a car when I three or four
people need to go somewhere. If not, thought starts with motorcycle. I wish
more cities in the US were motor-cycle friendly.

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speeq
> The government intends to kickstart the shift by setting up and
> incentivizing manufacturers of batteries and other components as well as
> charging stations.

\---

“I will announce locations for between two and four Gigafactories later this
year – probably four.” - Elon Musk

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had2makeanacct
India has already offered incentives for Tesla to open up car factories before
they decided to go with China first IIRC. Piyush Goyal (minister of renewable
energy, mines) still seems to be a fan of Tesla

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rakibtg
Q: How they gonna produce that amount of electricity?

A: Using politics and destroying the world’s largest mangrove forest. (Sorry
if i am so rude or offensive here)

Sad!

I dont know if govt of Bangladesh is somehow forced to build a massive 1,320
megawatt coal-fired power plant within kilometres of the Sundarbans, india
will have almost 85%(+/-) of the electricity produced from here.

I would request the Norway’s sovereign wealth fund and other investors to not
to invest and let something good happen. To me that is not progress, We are
all bad...

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-
environment/wp/20...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-
environment/wp/2016/07/18/a-new-power-plant-could-devastate-the-worlds-
largest-mangrove-forest/)

[http://www.thedailystar.net/frontpage/risk-losing-
sundarbans...](http://www.thedailystar.net/frontpage/risk-losing-
sundarbans-1279825)

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pkaye
Can they bring the cost down where Indians can afford it? Even in the US it
seems like a luxury.

