Written by Harsh B Parmar
Electric vehicles are a very trendy topic nowadays. Electric vehicles in layman's terms are green fuel vehicles that don't exert pollution in the environment. Electric stations, solar panels, or batteries can charge electric vehicles available in the market. Electric vehicles also have low running costs compared to the other vehicle types as they have quite a few moving parts and are also very environmentally friendly. Some electric vehicles nowadays might use batteries like lead acid or nickel hydrides. Still, the most popular one for EVs is lithium-ion batteries as they are known for their energy retention power and their long-lasting life.
In many countries including India, the decision to incentivize electric vehicles was taken a few years back. One of the leading manufacturers of electric bikes i.e. OLA recently announced its five new electric motorcycles that will put the organization in competition with TATA and Mahindra & Mahindra. Moreover, Tata Motors has built a plan to extend its network in Electric Vehicles as JLR is reportedly going to invest 15 Billion pounds in the EV business. Hence, the future of electric vehicles in India is looking quite bright as it seems.
One of the major aspects of getting an electric vehicle is its range and charging infrastructure. To help India realize its EV dream, It may require building nearly 21 lakh charging stations by 2030. Various stakeholders have engaged themselves to build electric vehicle charging infrastructure. The major infrastructure producers are Okaya, ABB, and RRT. Electric vehicles such as Mahindra XUV400 have a 34.5 kWh battery pack with a 375 Km range and Tata Nexon EV has a much larger 40.5 kWh battery pack with a 453 Km range. Hence, electric cars are gaining popularity as manufacturers introduce vehicles offering more range. To potentially cop with the range anxiety of the consumers.
There are majorly 4 types of electric vehicles available:
1) Battery Electric Vehicle: This type of vehicle are most popular one as they are fully powered by electricity and are more efficient than hybrid vehicles(plug-in vehicles).
2) Hybrid Electric Vehicle: This type of vehicle uses both a combustion engine as well a battery-powered motor. Hence, the petrol engine can charge the batteries while driving. This type of vehicle is generally costly and offers less range on batteries compared to battery electric vehicles.
3) Fuel Cell Vehicle: This type of vehicle has a fuel cell to generate electricity by chemical energy converted to electric energy.
The shifting of the trend from petrol/diesel-powered vehicles to electric vehicles is expected to generate demand in the Indian market of labor. The skilled labor required for the design and development of electric vehicles, Production and manufacturing of the batteries to run them, and maintenance of the infrastructure of electric vehicles. Moreover, the demand for professionals like software engineers to design applications to run EVs, Electric Engineers to develop EV electric systems and parts, and Electronics Engineers to design the control systems would increase significantly over some time.
Hence, overall talking about Electric vehicles: Charging in the future the demand has increased quite significantly over the years due to global warming concerns, increased cost of petrol/diesel fuels, and improved ranges of vehicles. This will continue to drive increased electric vehicle use in the next decade. Moreover, this type of demand might bring additional challenges in India such as skilled labor requirements, infrasture requirements, competitive market, etc.