It goes without saying that mobility is one of the largest sectors contributing towards carbon emissions and, therefore, was one of the first industries to look at for mitigating climate change.
Electric mobility is no longer a future but the present. When we talk about electric mobility, what comes to mind is the framework that has been made successful in countries like China, Europe and the US, said Brajesh Chibber, Partner, McKinsey & Company. India need not apply this and can leapfrog in a very different dimension, because our vehicle construct is very different, made up majorly of two- and three-wheelers, he said while speaking at the 18th Sustainability Summit by CII here.
The event was held on August 22-23 and Chibber addressed the gathering during a panel discussion on “Emerging Technologies for Sustainability”.
He said the country’s commercial vehicles were dominated by light commercial vehicles, small commercial reference payloads or low average speeds or low torque requirements. These are different from those used in other countries.
“Our power requirements are very different. And these use cases, if we start to think from a standpoint or a frame of what we have in developed markets, we will start to overreach and we will start to put what probably is not fully optimal for a market like India. Therefore, we should create solutions best suited for emerging markets,” he said.
India has the largest population of two-wheelers and three-wheelers on this planet and it sells the largest number of vehicles every year, Chibber said.
“Our OEMs here are best placed to engineer solutions which are best suited for applications like this. A battery technology that can charge in 10 minutes and give 400 km — application of that in India is very little. We have to figure out more cost-efficient batteries, battery technology or battery chemistry, which is more akin to less (use) of rare-earth metals and developed using more abundantly available raw materials,” he said.
The partner at McKinsey said India can also leapfrog in partnerships with countries that have similar transportation uses, where such applications will be of great demand. It can look at South-South collaborations on building such technology, on sourcing these raw materials.
Speaking on the use of hydrogen in transport industry, he acknowledged that eventually, battery technology probably would not be the way to go for zero-emission vehicles, and hydrogen could potentially come in, along with other technologies like fuel cells used in developed markets.
“But again, our use case in India is that we don’t have 40 tons of goods being hauled by a single truck. We don’t have trucks which will pile up 500 km a day. So maybe fuel cell technology is a bit of an overstretch for a market like India. Can we think of hydrogen-powered internal combustion engines, which is something that is being experimented and India can build the technology for emerging markets,” he added.
