Are we set for Electric Cars? Questioning the Environmental Readiness of India

Electric Vehicles (EVs) have been proposed as a means to reduce thegreenhouse emissions from the transportation sector. Despite the obvious benefits ofzero tail pipe emissions, EVs have a wide variety of environmental effects whichmust be taken into calculation before a verdict can be passed on their effectively.The systems used to generate and run these EVs also play a part in determining theeffect that they have on the environment and the market in which they are introduced.Studies, however, show that despite the emissions due to the electricity producedto run the EVs are still less than those due to burning fuel in Internal CombustionEngine (ICE) vehicles. These studies use a Well-to-Wheel equation to determine theefficiency of each vehicle type. We argue that this method is over optimistic, providesonly a general analysis, and is inadequate to answer questions about environmentalfeasibility for different energy source mixes used in different countries. We performa country specific analysis for India. Additionally we provide a forecast, according tofour hypothetical energy scenarios, as to when it would be environmentally feasiblefor India to introduce EVs into the market. We find that EVs can be used as a meansto reduce greenhouse gasses only after the year 2035 in the energy scenario wherecarbon prices have begun to strongly effect energy decisions.