Eco Friendly Vehicles: A Case of Misplaced Emphasis?

Biofuel is just a bad idea.... :(

Hmm, good point, BUT, the pollution caused due to generation of electricity (in a thermal power plant, say) needed to CHARGE the electric car battery, per km, is FAR LESSER that the pollution caused due to burning fuel in a fossil fuel driven car, per km. This has been proved mathematically.

Electric cars are far efficient compared to fuel driven cars, and their carbon footprint is lesser too. Check out

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_car

for the mathematical proofs, which is a bit involving.

Love and peace to all,
Ayan

I too have thought of it for long time.

In fact going by the law of entropy, the free energy available(delta G) should definitely decreases if it is converted from one form to other.

In this case

Heat -> Mechanical -> Electricity
-> less (loss in transmission + loss in storage in battries) -> mechanical energy

as compared to Heat -> Mechanical. Even if each stage is 80% efficent in conversion we still have loss of about 30% in case of electric route. Or am I missing something?

The mathematical proof as mentioned in Wiki is based on calculations for USA where a major part of the energy comes from renewable sources. In India, while I don't have the exact numbers, the power plants are mainly hydrocarbon based. We have yet to move on to wind, solar, nuclear sources of energy.

Also while the article does have citations, not all the figures have citations. "at $1.25/gal a gasoline vehicle will go 18 miles (29 km)" Doesn't hold good in our case either as American preference for SUV's is legendary while Indians are more mileage conscious

Then we have the issue of transmission losses in India are one of the highest in the world. Conversion losses as pointed out by FF also need to be taken into consideration

But more importantly we are a energy deficient country. When people don't have power for domestic purposes due to load shedding can we afford to take on the burden of electric vehicles? Load shedding of upto 12 hours a day are not uncommon during summer months. There are villages in India where power has still not reached after 60 years of independence.

Also people refuse to pay more for electricity to private operators providing electricity as witnessed by the agitations against pricing policy in Bombay / Delhi.

It would then fall upon the govt to subsidize power from tax payers money and what not. In such a case, have we really examined all the likely side effects of promoting electric vehicles or are we getting carried away by marketing hype?

Another classic case of our government looking through a microscope where a helicopter view is required - this is true of most development projects - while one can not completely eliminate the harmful effects of "development" growing economies like ours shouldn't repeat the mistake of a US or closer on the development scale - China. we all know the struggle on pollution there ... I think the facts can be debated - but i think all will agree that our government seems to be too caught up with the GDP growth number rather than quality of growth ... and that is worrying ...

You have posed some interesting questions. I hope the powers that be can come up with the answers soon. Else the only people who will be able to use the electricity powered cars would be those who have the benefit of free electricity in India - politicians and their slum/rural vote banks

Yes, "eco-car" manufacturers like to talk of tail-pipe emissions as though they represented the entire ecological burden of powering the vehicles. Your analysis is spot-on.

The more important and interesting question, though, is whether cars (as we currently conceive and create them) make any sense at all in a developing Twenty-First Century society. I have argued, on purely non-environmental grounds, that India's current automobile fetish is emblematic of the retrograde thinking that will leave it mired in mediocrity, notwithstanding its awesome opportunity and astounding potential to develop into a world-leading economy. But, more in line with this discussion, consider the following rough analysis (based on 2004 U.S. data).

With an average passenger vehicle weight of 1844 kg, and average total passenger weight of 110 kg (conservative estimate, since most vehicles are single occupancy most of the time), less than six percent of the petrol we consume to move us from place-to-place actually moves us. Move than 94 percent of the fuel is needed to move the car. In what other commercial realm would we tolerate a solution with this astonishing inefficiency?

India doesn't need more cars; it needs fewer cars. India already has one of the world's most efficient last-mile transportation solutions in the autorickshaw. With faster, safer, cleaner, more convenient, more efficient public transportation -- coupled with non-privately owned personal transportation, like the autorickshaw or other efficient point-to-point solutions -- India could show the world how a sustainable paradigm for intra-urban transportation, which produces a much higher quality of life for all, is already within our technological capability. The only problem: India will never do that. Sad.