Our friends at http://www.PlugInIndia.com have successfully created India’s 1st and ONLY community charging infrastructure. Its kind of Zero Budget Infrastructure that was set up by the community to enable Electric cars to travel much beyond their range-boundary of 100kms. The best thing about the charging infrastructure is it pays the Infrastructure-developer an income from anybody who comes to charge the vehicle. The charging fee range from free charging to Rs 100 per hour depending upon the shop that is providing the charging. If charging is done from a shop then charging is done from a commercial meter at commercial rates and thus they charge Rs 100 per hour. Some people have opened their hearts and let the EV community charge free from their house or housing society.
This effort has made trips between Mumbai to Pune and back a distance of 300kms (150kms each way) completely possible for anybody with E2O which has a range of just 100km WITHOUT ANY DIFFICULTY.
The fact remains that Mahindra were NEVER ABLE TO IMPLEMENT highway charging “infrastructure” is proof to our below statement of “incompetence”. These are the same guys who tried to sell Manual Transmission (MT) Scorpio in countries where people do not touch MT without realizing that the “MT-era” had passed in those countries 😉
Lol…looks like the EV community have got pissed off with Mahindra’s go-slow approach and started to implement their own solution while all the petrol car makers have have developed Electric Car since 2010… but refuse to release it and hold the Govt responsible for its delay. Companies like Tata, Maruti & Mahindra talk EVERY YEAR about “releasing the NEW Electric car next year”… and which never got released for 5 straight years. Zero work also on Infrastructure development.
Its time the Government start to fine all who flout the below rule:
- Car manufacturers who do not manufacture 10% Electric vehicles.
- All Companies must have at least 10% of their 2-wheeler/car/bus fleet as Electric cars.
We at PlugInCaroo believe as a rule of thumb that Petrol Car companies the world over are incompetent to make electric car… at the efficiency of say Solar Ahmed‘s Vehicle… at the same price, range and distance.
For Eg. The 63yr old Solar Ahmed whose car is robest enough to have traveled above 100,000 Kms with a Rs 100,000 car, and even covered a 3,000kms journey in 30 days. Thus he can travel all over India even the Ghats without a single drop of petrol… At that rate… he was covering a distance of 100kms per day charging from Solar Panels… a task not even equaled by Mahindra’s Rs 9,00,000 E2O especially considering the price of Solar Ahmed’s car. Now dont even mention the BMW’s or Tesla’s price tag for they have to hang their head in SHAME.
…for now lets check out the magic that PlugInIndia has woven…
PlugInIndia’s Electric Car Roadtrips : Baby steps to the futureThe EV community in the cities of Pune and Mumbai did a series of test rides on an electric car – The Mahindra e2o between Mumbai and Pune over the last 2 weeks. A total of 5 electric cars drove around 1500 km with enthusiastic owners feeling green and great!
Together we saved more than 125 liters of petrol for our country and we did not pollute the air in the beautiful western ghat mountains. All of us would want to do this again and again and again! The EV community in India is not blessed with DC Quickcharge stations to make road trips easy for us.
So Level 2, 15 Amp sockets is what we were after. Two normal stations were installed by PluginIndia community and Mahindra Reva at Khandala and Nerul, Mumbai. All of a sudden, Mumbai-Pune was possible.A distance of 150 km, 1 way, might appear trivial. But it is not as trivial as it sounds. The reason for this is the Sahyadri mountains at Khandala/Lonavala, where we descend from an altitude of 625 meters to around 50 meters. This is not an issue while going from Pune to Mumbai as we go down and regenerative braking helps us gain energy! The problem as in all EV’s is the huge energy consumed while climbing uphill. The fear of the ghat (mountain) along with lack of dedicated charge stations ensured many in the community did not dare venture in the expressway! Ultimately the ghat proved to be a non issue due to strategically placed charging stations, efficient EV driving habits and well designed Mumbai-Pune expressway which eliminated steep hairpin bends. All in the terrain
Here are stories of the 5 pioneers!
My exploratory drive – The Explorer!
Pune-Mumbai-Pune : Yellow e2o – Eva There were some test drives on the Mumbai-Pune route done by Mahindra Reva personnel and an occasional dare devil without permanently installed stations. But this resulted in walking to shops asking for a 15 Amps socket and generally indulging in running around, convincing shop owners etc. All this resulting in frustration and wasted time!
Now that we have 2 dedicated stations, i would not have to go through all that and i wanted to find out bout the experience! My video blog sums up the experience pretty well. Eva did great during the trip! Some other fun observations!
http://www.pluginindia.com/blogs/electric-car-roadtrips-baby-steps-to-the-future |
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