India In The Driver’s Seat?

Context: We have a distinct opportunity to become the leader in the global electric vehicle revolution.

Background on global electric vehicle revolution

• Indian announced a new vehicle scrappage policy: Underlining the need for India to move towards clean and convenient mobility via ethanol, hydrogen fuel or electric vehicles (EVs).
• A sunrise industry: Tesla is the world’s most valued carmaker. Volkswagen, Toyota, Daimler, BMW, Ford, General Motors, etc. are trying to catch up. Apple to launch iCar by 2025.

Challenges in electric vehicle revolution

• Dependence on costly rare earth metals: EVs need motors for power, as traditional vehicles need engines. These motors use magnets enriched with the rare earth element neodymium. 
• Rare earths are, well, rare and command a high price, their current market pegged at more than $9 billion a year and expected to grow to $15 billion by 2025.
• Extracting rare earths consumes enormous energy and harms the environment with toxic waste. That undermines the biggest appeal of EVs: ecofriendliness

Way Forward: 

• Huge potential market: Including cars, two- and three-wheeler segment.
• Innovation in achieving efficiency: There are two blocks of innovation that need to come together.
• The first is the motor, which must run without rare earths. This can be done by employing:
• Switched reluctance motor, in which the power is delivered only to the stator, and the rotor is made of laminated steel.
• Electromagnetic synchronous motor, in which the power is delivered to both the stator and the rotor. It can be simpler and last longer by doing away with the brushes.
• Permanent magnet motor, which uses shaped soft magnetic composites. The shape of the magnet focuses the magnetic lines of force, removing the need for rare earths.
• The second is the motor controller, which influences the efficiency of the powertrain: Key is to develop application-specific chips that optimise the operation of the control software
• Advancing semiconductor and chip-making industry can help run intense computation running on sophisticated processors, thereby increasing the efficiency by 25-30%
• India can own the intellectual property for a technology that will power a highly efficient, low-cost, neodymium-free powertrain that can be supplied to global markets.
• Leveraging India’s start-up cycle: From providing innovative solutions to proof of concept to testing it in real-world conditions and apply it to a predefined problem.

Conclusion: A lot remains to be done. We will need a central place where the world’s best minds can come and collaborate. We need not reinvent the wheel. But we can certainly recreate history.