Welcome to the November issue of our monthly blog series Green EVolution rounding up all things EVs & Renewable, for the month of October and November,2020. Follow along, and click on the headlines to know more about in detail.
The Karnataka government has proposed a subsidy of 20% or Rs 10 lakh, whichever is higher, to individuals willing to set up public charging stations for electric vehicles. An EV charging station costs Rs 30-40 lakh.
App-based cab aggregator Uber is going to deploy over 1,000 electric vehicles in five cities, including Delhi-NCR, and plans to scale it up to 2,000 electric vehicles on its platform by next year.
Police Scotland has decided to buy 180 Kona Electrics, all of them the 64 kWh battery option. Police Scotland’s Fleet Strategy is highly ambitious, with the aim of having the UK’s first ultra-low emission blue light fleet by 2030.
India could emerge as one of the biggest market for Tesla. Tesla Energy & soon to be coming $25k car will play a huge role.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk says that the company’s online order configurator will hit India “probably in January” 2021. The order configurator will allow customers to choose their variant, design the car, and place a deposit down on an all-electric car.
We at TCIN are way too excited regarding Tesla's entry in India next year.
*Don't forget to check out the club merch. 100% profits will go towards helping build EV Charging infra in the country.
Karnataka has pitched Bengaluru to Tesla, as a potential location for a Gigafactory where it can manufacture electric cars and batteries.
Proposals have been invited from interested entities to build and operate EV charging infrastructure on the Mumbai – Pune, Ahmedabad-Vadodara, Delhi-Agra, Bengaluru-Mysore, Bengaluru-Chennai, Surat – Mumbai, Agra – Lucknow, Eastern Peripheral and Hyderabad-ORR expressways.
Transport minister Laxman Savadi said the bus is capable of running 200-250 kilometres in a single charge with the AC on in the city’s regular traffic conditions.
During the conference call following Tesla’s Q3 2020 earnings, Tesla CFO Zachary Kirkhorn warned that the company is increasing its planned capital expenditures. It is expected to be at the high end of $2.5 to $3.5 billion in 2020 and increase to $4.5 to $6 billion in each of the next two fiscal years.
Researchers at both automakers found strong evidence in the 1960s and '70s that human activity was warming the Earth. Throughout the time, both GM and Ford continued to resist a technology that could have lowered their emissions and dependence on fossil fuels: the electric car. Instead of going all in on the electric car, both GM and Ford reoriented their business models toward larger vehicles that used more gas, such as SUVs and pickups.
New figures released by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) showed that about 2320MW of solar capacity was added between January and September, with around 1,437MW of that being ground-mount.
Earlier, Industries Minister Subhas Desai and Environment Minister Aaditya Thackeray held a video conference with Tesla's senior management soon after Elon Musk tweeted that Tesla could enter India next year
The Gujarat government has been actively involved in bringing the company to the state after Elon Musk, founder of Tesla, recently announced his interest in India.
In 2011, Infosys made a pledge to become carbon neutral by 2020. Infosys has reduced its per capita electricity consumption by over 55 % with the aim to transition to renewable energy. Over 44 % of its electricity consumption was met through renewable energy sources in the financial year 2020. It also invested in 60 MW of solar PV capacity.
Telangana State EV & ESS Policy explained briefly. A comprehensive list, mentioning all key points.
- 100% exemption on Road Tax for first 2,00,000 EV 2W.
- 100% exemption on Road Tax for first 20,000 EV 3w.
- Private 4W, 100% Road Tax exemption for first 5000 EVs.
- For Commercial 4W, 100% exemption from Road Tax for first 5000 EVs.
This development comes on the backdrop of Ola’s recent acquisition of Netherlands-based Etergo BV for an undisclosed amount earlier in May this year. Developed as an all-electric state-of-the-art App scooter, Etergo BV uses swappable high energy density batteries to deliver a range of up to 240 Km. This acquisition has helped Ola Electric develop strong engineering and design capabilities as the company has had development experience with leading automotive brands like General Motors, Tesla, Ferrari, BMW and Jaguar.
The project’s estimated cost is ₹68 million (~$911,920), and interested bidders will have to pay an amount of ₹665,000 (~$8,918) as the earnest money deposit (EMD). The last date to submit the bids is December 08, 2020, and the opening of bids will take place on December 14, 2020. The entire work should be completed in 72 months in two phases. Phase-I should be completed in 12 months, and phase-II should be completed in 60 months.
The Rajasthan Electricity Regulatory Commission (RERC) has issued an important regulation, included a 100% exemption of intra-state transmission and wheeling charges for solar power projects supplying power to electric vehicle charging stations. There is a 100% exemption in intra-state transmission and wheeling charges for solar power project set up after the notification of these regulations and before March 31, 2023.
EV manufacturers have been lobbying the government to reduce tax and increase sops for developing India as a manufacturing hub for such vehicles. For hybrid vehicle makers, the high taxes are an impediment. The development shows a growing divide between automakers regarding adoption of different eco-friendly technologies such as battery electric and hybrid, to replace combustion engines.
Bentley will stop building cars with traditional internal combustion engines within six years, instead making hybrids and then its first battery electric cars in 2025. By 2030 it will sell only pure battery electric vehicles, with zero-carbon exhaust emissions.
Electric vehicles (EVs), batteries and charging equipment could be brought under the standardisation and labelling (S&L) programme of the government to define their efficiency using the star-rating method. It will help the customers choose the most energy-efficient EVs.
Asserting that India has full potential to emerge as a global hub for electric vehicles by 2025, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari on Friday asked automobile manufacturers to reduce cost and forego profit initially to capture market and fuel growth. Once the market picks up there will not be any looking back, promising all support to manufacturers in the initiative aimed at cutting India's huge import costs of crude and arresting pollution.
According to draft model bid document posted on Niti Aayog's website, the government intends to develop giga-scale advance cell manufacturing for domestic application and promotion of diverse energy sources to ensure overall energy security.
The Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) has invited bids to select a service provider to procure 300 electric buses on a gross cost contract (GCC) model. The contract will also include the operation and maintenance (O&M) services.
Elon Musk stoked Indian Tesla fans’ hopes in July when he tweeted that Tesla would launch Model 3 in India “hopefully soon.” Recently, TCIN followed up, asking Elon if Tesla was making any progress on expanding to the Indian market. “Next year for sure,” tweeted the Iron Man. Later he seemed to confirm that this was more than idle speculation, saying, “Will release order configurator probably in Jan.”
The Bharat Coking Coal Limited (BCCL), a subsidiary of Coal India Limited (CIL), has invited bids to develop 1.2 MW of grid-connected rooftop solar projects at 19 different locations of BCCL in Dhanbad, Jharkhand. The estimated cost of the project is ₹44.66 million (~$598,435), and interested bidders will have to pay an amount of ₹558,250 (~$7,480) as the earnest money deposit (EMD).
SpaceX has recommended TRAI to encourage tech-neutral definitions. It highlighted that Starlink doesn’t require “last-mile fibre lines. SpaceX demands for “blanket licensing” for effective results.
The Pune Mahanagar Parivahan Mahamandal Limited (PMPML), a public transport service provider, has floated an expression of interest (EoI) for 10 MW of grid-connected rooftop solar projects under the Renewable Energy Service Company (RESCO) model for its sites. Mercom has tracked over 243 (273.90 MW) rooftop solar tenders based in Maharashtra.
President-elect Biden promises new tax incentives to buy EVs. Tesla sold nearly 60 percent of the total EVs sold in the US in 2019. California plans to ban sale of gasoline powered passenger cars by 2035.
Infraprime Logistics Technologies, a start-up in construction logistics is planning to rollout 1,000 heavy duty electric trucks in India post successful commercial run of its fleet of 55-MT electric trucks over the last one year. The commercial run demonstrated up to 60 per cent savings in operating cost over conventional diesel trucks.
Chief Executive Officer Herbert Diess explained how VW will deploy its massive 150 billion-euro ($178 billion) investment budget over the next five years at Volkswagen AG’s annual spending update. Tesla Inc. was mentioned 31 times by management and analysts during the near two-hour presentation. Under Diess’s direction, VW has begun benchmarking itself against Musk’s company.
The development tests conducted by ARAI returned a single-charge range of 230 km in Eco mode, a top speed of 103 kmph and a 0-50 kmph acceleration in 3.6 seconds. Now, the firm is looking to raise investments for its production model Mark 2. ARAI certification is for prototype Mark 1, and not the actual scooter.
Electric vehicle startup Rivian, on Wednesday said it plans to follow up its first two products, a full-size pickup and SUV, with smaller models targeted at China and Europe where it may eventually build some vehicles. Scaringe added: “We wouldn’t be serious about building a car company if we weren’t thinking about China and Europe as important markets long term.”
The government has received expressions of interest to set up manufacturing capacity of nearly 35,000 MW of solar equipment. If the bids materialise, they would result in the first large-scale plan to set up the manufacturing of ingots and wafers in the country.
India’s solar power tariffs hit a new record low of Rs2 per unit on Monday during a bid conducted by state run Solar Energy Corporation of India Ltd (SECI). NTPC has decided not setting up new greenfield coal-fueled power projects and plans to make a total capital expenditure of Rs1 trillion between 2019 and 2024 to become a 130 GW power producer by 2032.
The solar power initiative helps CIL reduce its annual power consumption expense, which was around Rs 3,400 crores ending FY20, accounting for around 4.4 per cent of the revenue expense for the year.
Delhi Government plans to subsidise 25% of the cost of the cycle (up to Rs 5,500) and give a fixed additional incentive of Rs 2,000 on the first 10,000 e-cycles. There will be higher incentives for ‘cargo e-cycles’, which would be used for last-mile delivery. A purchase incentive of 33% of the price, up to Rs 15,000, per cargo e-cycle will be given to buyers of first 10,000 cargo e-cycles.
More exciting stuff for you ardent enthusiasts to follow:
Tesla’s (Potential) Roadmap for India - TCIN Blog
My EV Story – Ather 450 - TCIN Blog
Savings you have with your EV - Ather Forum
TCIN Podcast 11 : Elon Replied to Us - Youtube
Sign this petition to Support the cause: Residents of high-rise apartment societies are facing hurdles from management committees for setting up a 15Amp socket in their designated parking slots for charging their EVs. We need clear rules and guidelines from statutory authorities and ministries for setting up individual home charging stations for apartment residents.
Don't forget to check out TCIN Merch. 100% profits will go towards helping build EV Charging infra in the country.
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