Government wants entrepreneurs to develop cheaper and more efficient e-cars
New Delhi: State-owned Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL) has thrown open a challenge for entrepreneurs and start-ups to develop electric cars that are more efficient in terms of performance and cheaper than what it had sought in a global e-cars tender it floated last year.
As part of a two months-long innovation challenge based on a common streak of energy efficient solutions, EESL with the World Bank and World Resources Institute (WRI) has sought variants of electric cars that can run 200 kms or more in a single charge and is priced at Rs 10 lakhs.
The solutions, if viable, will be scaled up and commercialised by EESL, senior officials said.
Although proposed as a means to seek innovative solution in the electric mobility segment, the specification is strikingly different from the 130 km range that EESL had sought in an electric cars tender it floated in August 2017 for procurement of 10,000 cars.
Home grown automakers Tata Motors and Mahindra & Mahindra bagged the tender in equal halves. The price for each car, arrived at through a competitive bidding process, was Rs 11.2 lakhs.
Apart from electric mobility, the challenge also seeks solutions in the field of grid management, energy storage, financial instruments for sustainable funding, among others. The company has also sought solutions in the field of charging stations—an element which is instrumental for the success of electric mobility initiative in India.
Meanwhile, the power ministry has asked the Department of Heavy Industries to subsidize setting up of charging stations for the market to pick up, Power Secretary Ajay Kumar Bhalla said at the launch of the innovation challenge here on Tuesday.
Bhalla said that the government expects scalable solutions that result from this challenge, which can be adopted for integration of renewable energy and promoting electric mobility in the country.
“One of the biggest challenges that India is facing where we are working towards ‘one nation-one-grid’, and adding huge transmission capacity, is the addition of 175 GW of renewable capacity by 2022,” Bhalla added.
EESL managing director Saurabh Kumar said that the government is exploring better solutions than what is already available on the table as of date.
“We are trying to go away from the straitjacket approach. The challenge is very much achievable. People can look at innovative design elements while we have thrown open an outcome,” Kumar told ET.
Source: economictimes.indiatimes
