The AMA with Autocar Editor Hormazd Sorabjee and Pranav Srivilasan builds on a story by Pranav on electric vehicles, titled What they don’t tell you about EVs in India.
22 Takeaways
(Editor’s Note: You can jump directly to any takeaway by scrolling the video to the mentioned timestamp. Or, you can watch it on YouTube and jump to any of the chapters)
9:08: Are electric cars sustainable?
1. An EV powered by the dirtiest source of power generation, is still environmentally more friendly than an ICE (internal combustion engine) car—and it can only get better.
12:25: Recycling batteries
2. There’s a whole second life industry for the battery, but the truth is, recycling is one of the biggest challenges. You are choosing whether you want to pollute the air or pollute the Earth.
15:16: Total cost of ownership
3. If you’re charging at home, the running cost dramatically drops, as opposed to charging at a public fast charger. On average, if charging at home, you can recover the delta between the petrol and the EV in two years.
17:17: Resale value
4. Resale values are actually pretty bad. Since batteries have finite life, about 12 years, someone buying a used EV could have a battery which has already degraded half its life. Some manufacturers are trying to address that with buyback guarantees. A lot of EV customers will probably accept the poor resale value because of the benefits of an EV—they're smooth, easy to drive, and stress free.
20:19: The EV experience
5. For anyone who’s driven EVs, especially in town, it’s very hard to go back to an ICE vehicle.
21:23 Viable life of an EV
6. Keeping a car for 10 years is possible. Obviously, the resale would be terrible after that. The battery degradation depends on how many times you charge it—the more you drive, the more you recharge. It also depends how you charge—DC fast charging constantly shortens battery life. But battery technology is evolving.
24:26 Battery technologies
7. The two main lithium-ion batteries are LFP and NMC.
LFP is cheaper and has a longer life. NMC is very high energy density and is used more in the West for high performance, premium vehicles.
A lot of the two-wheelers also use NMC, as they need a lot of energy density in a small package.
27:51: Battery swapping and charging infrastructure
8. Battery swapping in cars is not practical. One, each car has its own design, so you don’t have one universal battery for all cars. Two, batteries weigh a couple of hundred kilos and are part of the chassis and are fixed.
9. Home charging has become absolutely critical for EV adoption. The quality of public charging is the biggest problem in India. You’ll be surprised how many charging points there are, but it’s a question of how reliable, convenient and fast they are.
10. Fast charging batteries are already commercially available, but not in the Indian mass market.
11. One inconvenience of public charging is that one will need different apps for different service providers.
37:28: Hybrids
12. Hybrid is going to be the name of the game going forward in this transition. Maruti Suzuki is championing it the most and when the market leader does that, it increases hybrid penetration.
13. It seems to be a very good solution, especially in our conditions of stop, start in urban use. Customers are gravitating towards hybrids purely because of the phenomenal fuel efficiency and the fact that they're not tied down to a plug.
40.42: Home charging
14. It is difficult to offer that at scale. Imagine there were 100 flats and 100 cars and everyone had a 7.5 kilowatt hour charger. Maybe one way is community charging—though it’s not ideal or convenient.
42:43: Battery rental model
15. Less than 10% have gone in for this battery as a service kind of model.
46:56: Electric scooters
16. Ola, frankly—unfortunately, the company doesn't have a quality culture. It’s all about getting products out fast, really, not going through proper validation. It's catching up with them. We’ve seen legacy players like Bajaj, especially, overtaking TVS. And it's a matter of time before they overtake Ola as well.
17. With Ola, typically on social media, there's a herd mentality, so it kind of gets blown out of proportion. But there is no doubt that service and quality is a big issue.
18. “The one company I'm very impressed with is Ather.” — Hormazd
50:57: EV car options
19. There's not too much choice at the lower end. I think that will take time to come. The costs are still quite high.
20. Today, the Chinese are the leaders in EVs. So if you're getting an EV, a Chinese brand is actually the one to go for.
55:31: Adjusting to a full EV
21. It's the easiest thing to adapt to. People who are used to driving a manual, take a little bit of time. But once you get the hang of it, the EV is super easy. And once you get a taste of the user friendliness of an EV, it'll be hard to go back to an ICE vehicle.
59:32 For whom is an EV right?
22. By 2026 we’ll have a lot more choices. If you have home charging and are generally using it in the city, an EV is an absolute no brainer. Can it be a one and only car? Perhaps not.
