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Transportation

Gasoline, Diesel Vehicles Dominate India's Auto Market, EVs Lag (reuters.com) 102

India's road transport minister on Tuesday warned local and foreign automakers to either cut production of polluting diesel vehicles or face higher taxes and levies, setting alarm bells ringing in the world's third-largest car market. From a report: Here are some facts about India's automotive market, the biggest after China and the United States, where players such as Maruti Suzuki, Tata Motors and foreign giants such as Mercedes and Volkswagen operate. In India, about four million passenger vehicles were sold in the fiscal year that ended in March, according to data from the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers.

Petrol vehicles have been the top sellers in recent years -- increasing their market share to around 68.4% in January-July 2023 from 42.5% in 2014, according to data from automotive market intelligence provider JATO Dynamics. Cost-conscious Indians are preferring to buy petrol cars as they are cheaper than diesel, even though diesel cars offer better fuel efficiency. In the luxury segment, though, which includes cars and SUVs made by Mercedes, BMW and Audi, petrol variants have accounted for 62% of sales so far this year, down from 68% in 2021, according to JATO Dynamics.

Tuesday's warning from minister Nitin Gadkari targeted diesel carmakers, whose market share has seen a steady decline to nearly 18% of passenger vehicles in January-July this year from 47.9% in 2014. But when it comes to luxury cars, diesel variants remain in vogue, with their market share rising to 33% so far this year from 31% in 2021.

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Gasoline, Diesel Vehicles Dominate India's Auto Market, EVs Lag

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  • Of course. (Score:4, Informative)

    by GotNoRice ( 7207988 ) on Tuesday September 12, 2023 @09:41PM (#63843534)
    Countries like India, China, etc, get a free pass. In many cases still building coal power plants as fast as they can. Meanwhile we're destroying the US economy by forcing transitions before all of the kinks are actually worked out. We can buy our Chinese manufactured electric cars using a Chinese batteries, and charge them using Chinese solar panels and Chinese wind turbines, while they keep milking coal and buying cheap gas from Russia.
    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by oblom ( 105 )

      Technically you are right about "destroying the US economy", but that's not the whole picture. The people in power decided to accelerate Schumpeter's "creative destruction" by forcing advanced economies to transition to clean energy and manufacturing. The high price of this transition and mistakes made in the progress are covered up by governmental spending and money printing. Public opinion is shaped via media propaganda.

      In the meantime, all dirty manufacturing and energy is left for "the rest" of the worl

      • Well...yeah?

        Why, did you want the petrochem plant in front of your house instead of somewhere in Generistan?

    • A "free pass" from whom? And how can you claim green energy is "destroying the US economy" when it's responsible for explosive economic growth? What planet do you live on, and why is that planet Fox News?
      • A "free pass" when it comes to criticism about pollution and greenhouse emissions. People act like it's still just a Western problem, meanwhile so many people are driving around Asia in 2-stroke gas scooters (each one of which pollutes more than a full-sized modern American gas TRUCK), that pollution levels in many Asian cities are considerably worse than they EVER were in places like Los Angeles. What is destroying economic growth is having to pay $100,000+ for many cars, $5 per gallon for gas in many ar
        • People act like it's still just a Western problem, meanwhile so many people are driving around Asia in 2-stroke gas scooters (each one of which pollutes more than a full-sized modern American gas TRUCK), that pollution levels in many Asian cities are considerably worse than they EVER were in places like Los Angeles.

          Americans produce 15.32 tons of CO2 per capita; Chinese 7.44; India 1.89.
          https://www.worldometers.info/... [worldometers.info] (I suspect any source would provide a similar ratio.)

          I disagree that developing nations get a free pass. But to the extent that we should be badgering third-worlders to take "greener" transportation, I suspect Americans with an iota of self-awareness would find the words stuck in their throat.

          (Would that the same happened whenever a Southerner thought to criticize the economic policies of productive

        • I don't know where you're getting any of that. China and India get plenty of criticism, and obviously it would be irrational to focus the bulk of attention on developing countries rather than on where most of the wealth, green technology, and moral debt for GHGs lies, not to mention the most practical and political freedom to evolve. Your complaints are like adolescent whining about much younger siblings getting away with more. It makes no sense, and has no root in reality or ethics.

          The higher volume
          • As for your deluded fantasy about California's economic environment, desperate Southern chambers of commerce have been spouting that crap for literally thirty years, and somehow California is still the 5th largest economy in the world. No other state is even close or projected to become close in a meaningful timeframe.

            This is a well trodden trope that California likes to roll out there. Truth is California is not and never has been the 5th largest economy in the world. The truth is California economy is apart of the United States economy and that is what is counted on the world state. Not the individual participation of states or providences of larger nation states, which California is apart of.

            We wont' go into the back flips that some economists go into to get this 5th largest figure. Safe to say that most econ

            • Too bad the US Department of Commerce disagrees with you, since they officially classify US state GDP.

              California's is the 5th highest based on this really advanced type of math called counting.

              Even for right-wing copium, your reaction is borderline hysterical. North Korea called and wants to hire you as a news anchor.
        • by Anonymous Coward
          China already buy a lot more electric vehicles than Americans do.
          China is installing more solar and wind than the rest of the world combined.
          All that from a poorer country. You claim America doesn't have the money to compete with China and do the same? LOL Chinese people are already much cleaner than Americans are.
    • Well, that's up to you. It's trivial to know today where something was made. Just boycott things made in India or China.

      But how could you, it's so awesomely CHEAP! Look at those low, low prices! And you're not a sucker that would pay twice as much for something than he'd have to just for that "made in the U.S.A." label, are you?

    • Chinese coal consumption has remained steady over the past decade. They aren't building new coal plants, they are replacing existing ones. They are also massively increasing energy use on the back of large scale green programs and rolling out nuclear and renewables both in terms of supply as well as consumption at a far faster rate than the USA.

      Time to update your conservative talking points.

      India on the other hand...

      • Chinese coal consumption has remained steady over the past decade

        As opposed to the US', which has been dropping like a rock.

        They aren't building new coal plants, they are replacing existing ones.

        Even assuming that's true (no flame intended, I'm just not checking it before this posting): that's also as opposed to the US, which has, rather than replacing old coal plants with new ones, been converting them to natural gas (half as carbon-emitting) or just retiring them and building out other, less- or non-carb

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      China's EV market has exploded, and they have the best EV tech in the world. Best batteries, top notch drivetrains.

      The "pass" they got was to agree an aggressive Paris target for reaching peak emissions in 2030, and are on track to reach it 5 years early. And at a level about 1/3rd the peak emissions of the United States, per capita. China installed more renewable energy than the rest of the world combined, year after year.

      Turns out if you engage with these developing nations, show them that it's actually a

    • by ghoul ( 157158 )
      When you count the cumulative CO2 sent into the atmosphere, India and China will never ever send as much Co2 as the western industrialized countries did. Far before they reach that point they would have made the energy transition. This is a problem created by the Developed countries. Instead of complaining about developing countries emitting a fraction of what already emitted by the developed countries a little contrition would be appreciated. Those who got rich off ruining it for everyone else should pay h
    • Let me lay some valuable wisdom on you:

      You can only control the things within your purview. Don't worry about what other people do or think.

  • by oblom ( 105 ) on Tuesday September 12, 2023 @09:44PM (#63843538) Homepage

    Western companies are delusional if they seek mass-market adoption of EV in India. Do you realize how many people live there on $1/day income? EV's are a status symbol, nothing more.

    The world is splitting into two camps. Virtue signaling G7 and "the rest". Clean energy and advanced manufacturing for the first camp. Dirty power and 20th century mass production for the rest.

    • The biggest problem with India and other third world nations is lack of electrical infrastructure. Much if not most of India sees daily scheduled blackouts because their electrical generating capacity can't meet existing demands. If they would create green hydrogen along the coasts, they could distribute it to existing fuel stations. It would be almost the same as distributing propane, and that is a well established model. Fuel cell vehicles are what is practical most places in the world, not EVs. The fanat

      • by Shakrai ( 717556 )

        Hydrogen is very definitely not almost the same as propane. Propane is attractive because it liquifies at pressures easily contained within comparatively cheap cylinders. If the cylinder is ruptured the propane will boil off, rapidly, but not immediately. It remains liquid at atmospheric pressure around -42C and will quickly reach that temperature in a rupture scenario. Once there it can only boil off as quickly as it can absorb heat from the environment. You can see this process in action with comput

        • If we have cheap, abundant, and "green", hydrogen available then I'd expect it to be used to synthesize liquid hydrocarbon fuels. The reason why we'd go through the extra effort of using hydrogen to make liquid hydrocarbon fuels is in the parent comment on the difficulty and dangers of containing hydrogen as a fuel, or even propane as a fuel. A propane spill is more likely to be a fire and asphyxiation hazard than gasoline or diesel fuel. Gasoline will hold a flame if poured out on concrete but jet fuel

          • by Shakrai ( 717556 )

            EVs are decent for most use cases and seem to be where we're headed, like it or not. I'll come back to a concept I had decades ago when we didn't have li-ion packs offering hundreds of miles of range: Why don't EV vendors offer a generator trailer you could buy/rent for the occasional long road trip where charging infrastructure may not be available, or waiting for a charge may be undesirable? Today that trailer would undoubtedly run on some sort of fossil fuel, but tomorrow it could run on your synthetic

            • EVs are decent for most use cases and seem to be where we're headed, like it or not.

              Like it or not there's professional economists that estimate that even with an all out effort to replace internal combustion engine it would take twenty years to build out all the mines and factories required to build enough battery electric vehicles to keep up with vehicle demand. Even then with vehicles having a "half life" of about ten years if we started right now with a massive build up of BEV production we still have half the vehicles on the road powered by hydrocarbons in thirty years.

              If you want to

      • by ghoul ( 157158 )
        India's installed Generating capacity is 3 times the peak load. Most of the load shedding is due to faults in the distribution infrastructure. Also a lot of private owned plants dont run unless the rates have reached peak values. Govt tries to regulate electricity prices to keep them cheap. The excess capacity means India can easily handle more EVs and their load. The Cheap rates means its way cheaper to drive an EV than an ICEV. The transmission lines is a problem. Govt keeping electricity rates low means
      • >> Much if not most of India sees daily scheduled blackouts because their electrical generating capacity can't meet existing demands
        EVs help with that by providing scale buffer storage, and consumes when other demand is low....
        Hydrogen not, because it consumes 4x more power to generate than to recharge an EV.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Western companies are delusional if they seek mass-market adoption of EV in India. Do you realize how many people live there on $1/day income?

      And yet they are the 3rd biggest auto market, even with those poor people.
      No reason they can't buy EVs instead of the diesel cars they are already buying in large numbers.
      You are a little bit right by accident. They won't be buying expensive Western cars but cheap home build and Chinese ones.

      You need a -1 ingorant Westerner mod

    • by ghoul ( 157158 )
      Someone living on 1 dollar a day would much rather take an electric bus or electric train as its much cheaper than taking a Diesel powered bus. Unlike US , India doesnt have a huge amount of oil and Gas and has to import it. Which means its always cheaper to ride an EV charged with solar energy than to burn imported fossil fuels in an ICEV. And poor people dont come up with stupid reasons like wah my EV cannot do 500 km on one charge. The poor dont have the luxury to make up stupid reasons. They go with wha
    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      India has a rapidly growing middle class. A lot of used cars from Western and Japanese manufacturers end up there. It's a major growth market for tech like phones too.

      Now that EVs are getting very affordable compared to mid-range fossil fuel cars (and downright cheap for used ones), and the cost of ownership is much lower, they are attractive vehicles in India. The government wants to promote them to help with clean air too.

      The opportunity is there, we just have to make sure it is taken. Unfortunately India

      • India has a rapidly growing middle class. A lot of used cars from Western and Japanese manufacturers end up there.

        People who are actually middle class can afford to buy new cars. And I say this as someone who never has, and at this rate, probably never will.

      • by jedZ ( 571869 )
        Sorry but this is just plain wrong. India has extremely strong anti-dumping laws which make it nearly impossible to import a used car into the country except under very specific circumstances (returning non-residents importing for personal use, diplomatic vehicles etc.) All the western / Japanese cars there are either locally manufactured or imported brand new.
        • by ghoul ( 157158 )
          Even returning residents dont bring their cars. I didnt bring my Model 3 as on my 45K car I would have had to pay 60K tax. Plus the steering wheel would have been on the wrong side and Tesla has no support and service network here.
      • by ghoul ( 157158 )
        Wrong again. India does not import second hand cars as the import duty is more than 100% on second hand cars. India manufactures a lot of cars and the cost of new ones is less than old ones imported from the US or Japan. Where are you pulling these facts from? Have you even been to India?
    • Western companies are delusional if they seek mass-market adoption of EV in India. Do you realize how many people live there on $1/day income? EV's are a status symbol, nothing more.

      Let's be honest, in a country like India, it's not even EV versus ICE. Car ownership in general is a status symbol / luxury item.

  • Seems to me they're focusing too much on large vehicles. Unless that market is growing awfully fast.

    • by MacMann ( 7518492 ) on Wednesday September 13, 2023 @12:21AM (#63843750)

      Seems to me they're focusing too much on large vehicles. Unless that market is growing awfully fast.

      I had an interesting conversation with a man from India that could explain why there is a focus on large vehicles, the owners have money to pay bribes.

      A cheap piece of shit car, scooter, or auto-rickshaw (a three wheeled conveyance common to India) would rarely have license plates, would have been bought and sold with cash, and so there's no real public record of who owns it. Further, the driver is unlikely to have a license to drive, unlikely to have a permanent address, or have any money to pay a fine even if the police bothered to try to track them down.

      Fuel for vehicles are heavily taxed in India but kerosene fuel for cooking is not taxed, or maybe even subsidized. This cheap kerosene fuel is not all that efficient in a gasoline engine but it will make them go. By "not efficient" I mean it leaves a trail of blue smoke from all the particles of unburnt fuel and soot. If anyone has seen video from the streets of India then they likely know what I'm talking about. There's fines for using cooking fuel in road vehicles but, again, good luck in enforcing it when the people breaking the law are so common and they are unlikely to have any documents to track them down.

      People with nice cars and big trucks are going to have all their papers in order, will never ever pour cooking fuel into the tank, will have a proper license, and everything else in order because the police will stop them for a bribe or a legit fine because if they end up in a court for too many violations they could end up losing a lot of money, perhaps even lose the vehicle, to pay the bribes and fines.

      In a different conversation with a soldier in the US Army he mentioned how the diesel engines they used would run on just about anything. The problem was though if someone ran it with fuel too far out of spec in the engine it would likely leave it inoperable by the end of the day. It had something to do with how diesel engines are lubricated and cooled versus how gasoline engines did so. The military grade engines were built for a wide range of fuel so running them on kerosene would be fine but running on gasoline would be reserved for a last ditch effort to get everyone back to base, in which case it would need some repair before being returned to service but as he put it "the truck would get you home". The commercial-off-the-shelf diesel trucks used around base though could be torn to pieces if run on kerosene, but some of the lazy soldiers would still try their luck with topping off tanks with the readily available kerosene jet fuel than go through the trouble of going back to the motor pool for proper diesel fuel. This was rough on the engines but hard to track down who put the jet fuel in the diesel truck so it was rare to see anyone punished for it. This is relevant to our story because if someone with a big truck in India tried a similar trick of burning cooking fuel in their diesel engine then that's not only a fine if caught by police but putting a very expensive piece of equipment at risk of very expensive to repair damage. It's cheaper in the long term to just pay the extra taxes on diesel fuel.

      Oh, and the reason people in India still cook with kerosene so much is because the electric grid is often unreliable. It's preferable to cook with kerosene because if the power goes out then there's still a hot meal and people not getting sick from food poisoning. That also explains why electric vehicles are not popular in India. There's a few stories on why and how the power goes out so often but this is already getting long, use your imagination and you'll likely get close to figuring it out.

      • by ghoul ( 157158 )
        Many Many wrong assumptions.

        Public transport including rickshaws run on CNG in India. CNG is way cleaner than Diesel or Gasoline

        Diesel is mostly used in long distance trucks and farm machinery and luxury SUVs. Diesel is subsidized to an extent to support farmers but luxury car owners also get the subsidy. Gadkari doesnt want luxury diesel cars and is willing to add an additional tax so that its just cheaper to use gasoline cars in the cities.

        2/3rds of all new 2 and 3 wheelers being sold in India ar
      • by Viol8 ( 599362 )

        Modern common rail diesels have VERY high pressure fuel injector pumps and they require good lubrication or theyll burn out in seconds. The diesel fuel itself is the lube and petrol/gasoline (dont know about kerosene) simply cant do that job. Hence old diesels might have run on it for a while but a modern diesel would die at the bottom of the road.

      • I live in India and your article may have been true many years ago but not anymore. Rarely anyone uses kerosene - it is not available anywhere other than in Govt rationing stores (only people below poverty line eligible to buy it and only limited quantities). Cooking gas is the most common mode of cooking and is prevalent even in villages. My cousins in their village were using dry wood for their kitchen a decade back. Now they have all switched to cooking gas (which was subsidized by the govt).

        Vehicle with

      • Fuel for vehicles are heavily taxed in India but kerosene fuel for cooking is not taxed, or maybe even subsidized. This cheap kerosene fuel is not all that efficient in a gasoline engine but it will make them go.

        Kerosene can be burned in a gasoline engine, but only after it has been significantly modified. First you have to vaporize the fuel, it is not enough to atomize it. Second, if compression is higher than about 6.5:1 then you will get predetonation because kerosene has a very low octane rating. That means you can run it in a flathead ford, but not any vaguely modern engine — they all have compression over 8:1. Vaporizing the fuel is not too hard (it can be done with heat) but reducing the compression ra

  • Gasoline or diesel can be transported by hand, if push comes to shove. Electrons require electrical conductors.

    Then again, the treehuggers simultaneously fighting for mass EV adoption and against transmission line buildout seem to think otherwise. So who knows, maybe I'm wrong and it's some cigar-chomping, tophat-wearing, port-swilling something-or-other holding back the electric car, not the lack of technology to support the barely-existant technology.

    • The treehuggers will claim that people can use solar panels to charge up their electric vehicles. These are people that didn't do the math on how large these solar PV arrays would have to be in order to get any meaningful miles in any meaningful amount of time from solar power. They also ignore that if the weather was bad that day then there would not be enough sun to go anywhere, not unless the PV array was made even more absurd in size. If the weather got real bad then the PV array could face wind or h

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        India only has nuclear power because it needs the ability to manufacture nuclear weapons, and point them at Pakistan.

        It's not a suitable solution for other developing nations that aren't interested in the military uses. Too slow, too expensive, and frankly we can't trust some nations to use them. Fortunately the don't need them.

        Come on MacMann, have your arguments really got this pathetically poor now? Focusing on just one solar PV array, no grid scale, no mix of other renewables, just a single house with a

        • by ghoul ( 157158 )
          India has nuclear power because the basic equations of Nuclear fission were worked out by Indians. Look up Bose-Einstein statistics. India has had nuclear research since before the US. US got lucky and got a lot of German Jewish scientists during WW2. Indian scientists were studying nuclear fission in the 30s and India has been working on a 3 stage Thorium Nuclear Power program since the 50s. CIA assasinating the top Indian nuclear scientists put things back a while and the lack of investment also held thin
          • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            It's hard to imagine a more damning assessment of nuclear power in India. Been working on thorium for 70 years, still doesn't work properly. When the CIA decided that it didn't want India to have so much nuclear power, it assassinated a number of key personnel. Last time I checked I don't think any wind turbine engineers have been assassinated to stop development of renewable energy/wind based WMD.

            • by ghoul ( 157158 )
              Believe me if Iran start making better windmills than GE, we will start hearing how Windmills are a threat to global security. Most US sanctions are meant to maintain competitive advantage of US companies but couched in terms of security.
    • Gasoline or diesel can be transported by hand, if push comes to shove. Electrons require electrical conductors.

      Then again, the treehuggers simultaneously fighting for mass EV adoption and against transmission line buildout seem to think otherwise. So who knows, maybe I'm wrong and it's some cigar-chomping, tophat-wearing, port-swilling something-or-other holding back the electric car, not the lack of technology to support the barely-existant technology.

      You gotta wonder about the quality of the modern education that they got with their useless degrees and soon to be Federally absolved student loans.

    • by ghoul ( 157158 )
      Its way simpler and safer for another car to come over and give you a charge than to carry over gasoline in a Jerry can.
  • ... you need a stable and reliable electric grid to charge them. Never mind diesel vs petrol vehicles. What fuels are they using to power their generators when the utility is down?

    • by ghoul ( 157158 )
      Most Indian EVs have V2G tech. When the electricity goes you plug your EV into the house and run the house off the EV. When the electricity comes you charge the EV. EVs have many uses.
  • EV's have not gotten anywhere close to scale approaching the order of ICE vehicles and thus prices are not going to drop on these so it will be years for them to go through the process.

    -Right now they are getting more affordable but are still firmly in the upper mid to luxury range

    -After that they will reach price parity with your standard US/European vehicles, think your Honda Accords, Toyota Camry type area

    -After that when battery production is in full swing they will be available at the rate to make EV's

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Fact is nobody should be making prognostications about the EV market when we are in a transition phase

      You should have said that first and saved us from reading your first 5 paragraphs doing exactly that...
      Oh, and the rest of your post too.

      Fact is China is making huge numbers of EVs, selling a big and rapidly increasing % of EVs. And making cheap ones too. Easily an example India can follow.
      China are adopting EVs so fast there was an article here the other day talking about peak oil in China already being reached.

    • by ghoul ( 157158 )
      India already has 10000 dollar EV Sedans , 20000 dollar EV SUVs and 1000 dollar EV Scooters. EVs have no reason to be more expensive than ICEVs. they have far fewer parts and far less labor to manufacture. As long as you are willing to use a reasonable size battery instead of wanting a 500 km range battery (nobody drives 500 km a day in India. The roads are not conducive to it) EV prices can be reasonable. Factor in that India imports most of its fossil fuels and the govt taxes fossil fuels at 100% (Gas is
      • EVs have no reason to be more expensive than ICEVs. they have far fewer parts and far less labor to manufacture.

        You may have heard of this thing called a battery, it is quite expensive to make a good one.

        As long as you are willing to use a reasonable size battery instead of wanting a 500 km range battery (nobody drives 500 km a day in India. The roads are not conducive to it) EV prices can be reasonable.

        The distance traveled in a day is only one factor, there's also convenience of charging. If it's difficult to get access to a charger then you need more range so that you don't have to charge every day.

        • by ghoul ( 157158 )
          When you are going from walking everywhere or taking a bus , you will be perfectly happy with an EV with a 100 km range. Only 1 in 10 in India have a personal vehicle. When they get their first vehicle - a scooter- they are perfectly happy to get an electric one as its roughly the same price (after subsidies) as a fossil fuel one and much cheaper to run. This is why India is selling more EVs than the US.
        • by ghoul ( 157158 )
          Regarding charging govt is giving out a huge amount of subsidies for setting up charging stations and even otherwise small batteries providing 100 km range to a scooter dont need megachargers. They can be charged from a wall outlet in 2-3 hours and there are far more wall outlets than petrol stations. Plus it is very difficult to steal petrol but the poor steal electricity with illegal taps all the time in India so its basically free to run.
          • We're talking about cars here. Try to stay on topic.

            Our government has announced all kinds of charger subsidies too, but there's still a shortage of them in most of the country.

            • by stooo ( 2202012 )

              we're talking about India and transportation of people here. Try to stay on topic.

              • by ghoul ( 157158 )
                The article is about the automotive sector not the car sector. The numbers are for all vehicles including 2 and 3 wheelers. EV means Electric Vehicle which includes Electric 2 and 3 wheelers.

                The thing about a country with mostly young people there are not as many NIMBYs and entrenched interests. Things tend to happen fast as everyone's hustling to make a better life. When Govt gives out subsidies in India, things moooooooov. its not like the US where California has still not finished an HSR in 20 years.
            • by ghoul ( 157158 )
              The article is about the automotive sector not the car sector. The numbers are for all vehicles including 2 and 3 wheelers. EV means Electric Vehicle which includes Electric 2 and 3 wheelers. The thing about a country with mostly young people there are not as many NIMBYs and entrenched interests. Things tend to happen fast as everyone's hustling to make a better life. When Govt gives out subsidies in India, things moooooooov. its not like the US where California has still not finished an HSR in 20 years. I
  • Geez... does anyone really think that India has the electric infrastructure in place to even begin to support electric vehicles? How many Indians live in villages without electrical infrastructure? Hell, California can barely manage to keep the lights on during an extended heat wave even without factoring in all the parked Teslas sucking power off the grid during the daylight hours. If California can't do it now, does anyone think India, can anytime in the foreseeable future?

    This is the lie of electric v

    • Geez... does anyone really think that India has the electric infrastructure in place to even begin to support electric vehicles?

      I suspect those that believe India can switch to EVs by putting windmills and solar PV arrays everywhere. That's a fantasy though, there's a lot of material and labor that has to go into installing and maintaining wind and solar power. So long as they can get fossil fuels with less effort they will do so. What can get more energy per the same material and effort as fossil fuels are hydro, nuclear fission, and maybe geothermal. Onshore wind does very well in many locations on material and labor costs but

      • by mendax ( 114116 )

        California is setting themselves up for a big problem with their policies on fossil fuels.

        Yeah, and I live in California and voted for some of those turkeys in government who are trying to phase out fossil fuels without having sufficient alternatives in place. I'm ashamed to admit it but I voted for some of them only because the alternatives were much more scary. The "Looney Left" is a problem, and they sponsor such idiocy as you mentioned in your post, but they tend to be more sane all in all than the pr

  • Googling around, it looks like roughly half the country may experience *daily* power outages, with a strong split between rural and urban. Hard to get good data though, and I don't want to link a pay site.

    I also don't want to spread stereotypes. It's probably getting better, but how much better? The USA seems to be going in the other direction--a lot of my neighbors have purchased generators in the last few years, but we're in a rural area subject to what they call "public safety power shutoff" and IMHO

  • Cheaper transportation dominates a market where people have to get by on an annual budget that the average American blows on crap he doesn't need in a week?

    Who would have thought?

    • Yep exactly.
      the thing is: on the high end cars, and for motorcycles, electric is already cheaper to buy AND to operate.
      For the low end cars, those are cheaper to operate, but not yet cheaper to buy.

      Takes 2-3 years from now on..

  • If you factor in a growing middle class in India and China, all climate bets are off. The world would be in a far worse state if billions were not living in abject poverty and the problem is that you can't raise them out of poverty without dramatic consequences... what if millions of Indians decided they needed the status symbol of a car, instead of taking the train? What if they also decided to start taking flights to tourist destinations? The only reason our overpopulated planet is working is because bill
    • by ghoul ( 157158 )
      Noone in India or China is planning to be as wasteful as Americans or Australians. Trains are a big priority and people are aiming for European levels of development not US. Population densities in Western Europe are similar to India and China so that model works better.
  • I really liked my diesel Passat. Can I import one from India?

    It was sad: they issued a firmware patch to address the Dieselgate tuning about a month after I sold it back to VW. If they'd been faster, I'd still be driving it.

  • Until we change the way we generate electricity, it literally doesn't matter what the uptick of EV "zero emissions" cars is globally. It's only zero at the tailpipe. Chances are the energy is coming from a coal-fired power plant, which is dirtier than gasoline. India is not leading on that one, because they literally can't. India's EV adoption is therefore irrelevant. EV== good is not a valid premise. It's more nuanced than that.

    In the U.S., EV promotion and subsidy is an important step that drives all impo

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