Don't foreclose options

Electric vehicles alone may not be the best answer to pollution

Roland Folger, chief executive of Mercedes-Benz in India, has requested the government to avoid rushing into an era of all-electric vehicles. His statement comes against the backdrop of the government’s resolve to ensure that only electric vehicles are sold in the country from 2030. In fact, earlier in the year, Union Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari threatened to “bulldoze” the automobile industry’s perceived opposition to advancing the date for implementation of electric vehicles. To a great extent, Mr Gadkari and the government are justified in the push against conventionally fuelled cars. Pollution in Indian cities such as New Delhi routinely stays at alarming levels. And the surge of diesel- and petrol-fuelled cars is fast choking the urban population. The other concern is the high import bill because of conventional fuels. Moreover, the automobile industry is also seen to be habitually uninterested in any move that places the onus on them to shift to cleaner fuels and engines.

But there are several reasons why Mr Folger’s suggestions need a closer look. The central reason for not having a policy that rules out all vehicles other than those that run on electricity is that such a decision will foreclose other, and possibly better, technological options. A case in point is the use of hydrogen as fuel. By 2040, the world is expected to be driving home hydrogen cars. In a scenario where hydrogen cars become far more viable than electric vehicles, who will pay for the enormous expenditure of a countrywide shift to setting up charging stations and related infrastructure? The point is not just the viability of hydrogen cars or the exact nature of funding challenges that a push towards a completely electric fleet of vehicles will entail, though it will be substantial since automobile companies will have to produce and sell millions of electric vehicles against a few thousands at present. The real point is the inbuilt rigidity in India’s policy architecture as it rules out any other option. If the trigger towards electric vehicles is high levels of pollution, then, as is the case in cities such as San Francisco, the policy should push for zero emissions and leave the rest for the market to decide.

Moreover, if pollution is the central concern, the shift to electric vehicles is not necessarily the best option for India. Electric vehicles are a low pollution option for Belgium, where over half of the electricity is generated by nuclear power, and for Beijing, where more efficient gas-fired power stations are rapidly replacing old coal-fired ones. But in India, with its limited capacity of solar power to meet this demand and the miniscule contribution of nuclear power in its energy mix, nearly all of the power will have to come from coal. India is anyway predominantly dependent on highly polluting coal-based thermal power plants for meeting its electricity needs. As the demand for electricity surges with more vehicles running on it, there is no guarantee that pollution will decline overall. Clearly, while a push towards cleaner fuel is an unexceptionable goal, India’s policy framework should leave room for other solutions.