id CnG
Indigenous, durable, cheaper, greener
Intracity electric bus is a failed experiment.
India is a relatively capital starved country. Going green at a higher cost only makes sense if one can see a clear path to cost reduction such that the greener option also becomes cleaner. And obviously, anything unviable has to be subsidised. It was the case with solar power many years ago and is the case with electric buses today. The solar strategy paid great dividends as it helped create a solar ecosystem in advance.
However the electric bus subsidy hasn’t played out the way it should have. In fact there is a rather compelling case to withdraw it immediately for intra city applications and to divert it to inter city buses, long distance water ferries and long distance air taxis or electric planes.
Let’s look at what went wrong.
The state transport departments were all bankrupt. By upgrading their buses to electric, helped them avoid the capital cost of buying new buses. Electric buses being hawked by vendors chasing the rs 80 lac per bus subsidy were available on rental basis with a per km rent. This helped the state transport departments become even more inefficient. An electric buses needs the same staff and commutes the same distance as a diesel bus in theory. But not in practice. Buses have down time for charging. The aircon drains the battery in traffic jams. Buses catch fire and could kill people. It has been a Rs 25,000 crore failed experiment where the bus subsidy itself became a business case for companies that sprung out of nowehere. In some cities, these buses ply as little as 100 kms a day and the govt has to pay the minimum contractual rent for 80,000 kms pa. Charging is expensive and solar energy which costs rs 2.5 to produce is sold to state transport companies at rs 14 per kWh. The loot doesn’t stop there. The bus manufacturers charge another Rs 10 per km as annual maintenance charge. All in all, it didn’t work out.
But good we tried. We now know what doesn’t work. And have a better idea of what might work.
There are five core parameters to be got right. First and foremost, it has to be cheaper. City electric buses are not cheaper on a per km cost because of low speeds. Thus all the subsidy should have gone to intercity buses which could run 600 kms a day. Each inter city bus replaced reduces carbon emission by 5x compared to an intra city bus. It doesn’t need any subsidy so genuine players as opposed to subsidy racketeers would come in.
Second, it needs to be greener. There isn’t much of a consumer benefit here except that they may get a new airconditioned bus in place of a broken down rusted old bus. As long as green means new, it is great.
Third it needs to be durable. Means it should run for life, ideally without repair. Practically in India, it would mean we require vehicles with a design life of 30+ years to enable 30 year funding.
And last, you need an indigenous solution. Which as of now there is none.