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Table of content:                                                                                                    

1. Define EV (Electric Vehicles) ……………………………………………………………….
2. Different Types of electric vehicles (EV) …………………………………………….
3. Sources of electricity production in India ……………………………………………
4. Define pollution and pollution types……………………………………………………
5. Case study: ……………………………………………………………………………Are Electric Vehicles Really Green? Will EV’s will solve the pollution issue in  India.………………………….

Brief Note:

Well to understand and to encapsulate the topic outcome we need to have some basic core concepts.

Kindly go through all the sections which will define the basic core concepts and later we have the final case study outcome. This document contains graph which will help to understand the things in a good way.

1. Define EV (Electric Vehicles):

An EV is a shortened acronym for an electric vehicle. EVs are vehicles that are either partially or fully powered on electric power.

An electric vehicle (EV) is one that operates on an electric motor, instead of an internal-combustion engine that generates power by burning a mix of fuel and gases. Therefore, such as vehicle is seen as a possible replacement for current-generation automobile.

Types of Electric Vehicles (EV):

There are three main types of electric vehicles (EVs), classed by the degree that electricity is used as their energy source.

Hybrid Electric Vehicles (HEVs)

HEVs are powered by both petrol and electricity. The electric energy is generated by the car’s own braking system to recharge the battery. This is called ‘regenerative braking’, a process where the electric motor helps to slow the vehicle and uses some of the energy normally converted to heat by the brakes.

HEVs start off using the electric motor, then the petrol engine cuts in as load or speed rises. The two motors are controlled by an internal computer which ensures the best economy for the driving conditions.

The Honda Civic Hybrid and Toyota Camry Hybrid are both examples of HEVs.

Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEVs)

Also known as Extended-Range Electric Vehicles (EREVs), this type of EV is powered by both petrol and electricity. PHEVs can recharge the battery through both regenerative braking and ‘plugging-in’ to an external electrical charging outlet.

Example: Mitsubishi Outlander

Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs)

BEVs are fully electric vehicles, meaning they are only powered by electricity and do not        have a petrol engine, fuel tank or exhaust pipe.

BEVs are also known as ‘plug-in’ EVs as they use an external electrical charging outlet to charge the battery. BEVs can also recharge their batteries through regenerative braking.

Example: BMW i3 and the Nissan Leaf

1. Sources Electricity powering in India

Let’s See the below Pie Chart which will depicts the sources of electricity powering in India.

If we can analyze, here majority of the electricity is generated through coals ~55 % and remaining 45 percentage is through other sources.

We will use this source chart in solving our case study.

1. of Define pollution and pollution types:

Pollution is the process of making land, water, air or other parts of the environment dirty and not safe or suitable to use. This can be done through the introduction of a contaminant into a natural environment, but the contaminant doesn’t need to be tangible. Things as simple as light, sound and temperature can be considered pollutants when introduced artificially into an environment. 

Types of pollution are:

Water pollution (Water pollution happens when chemicals or dangerous foreign substances are introduced to water).

Air pollution (Air pollution occurs when things that aren’t normally there are added to the air).

Noise pollution (Noise pollution happens when the sound coming from Vehicles, planes, industry or other sources reaches harmful levels).

Land pollution (Land can become polluted by household garbage and by industrial waste).

All the above four are major pollution types, however there are few more types of pollution exist whose adverse contribution to environment can’t be ignored.

1. Are Electric Vehicles Really Green? Will EV’s will solve the pollution issue in India.

We are now ready to conclude and summarize the case study using our basic core concepts what we have perceive from above table of contents.

India is a developing nation where lots of foreign companies are showing interest in investment, one of the main reason is that they have new technologies which are highly in demand in India currently.

Considering the Automobile sectors there are already very big giant foreign companies operating in India.

Examples are Hyundai, Suzuki, Honda, General Motors etc.

Most of the vehicle manufacturing companies are operating using combustible engine.

This leads in generation of air pollution.

Cars, trucks, buses, off-road vehicles and planes are all considered mobile sources of air pollution. 

Let’s now understand how Engine pollution harms the Environment and Health

Carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, and hydrocarbons are released when fuel burns in an internal combustion engine. They may also be released when vehicle tailpipes emit air and fuel residuals. Gasoline vapors also escape into the atmosphere during refueling and when fuel vaporizes from engines and fuel systems caused by vehicle operation or hot weather.

The pollutants in engine emissions from vehicles or lawn equipment cause damage to lung tissue and can lead to and aggravate respiratory diseases, such as asthma. Motor vehicle pollution also contributes to the formation of acid rain. The pollution also emits greenhouse gases that cause climate change.

Diesel engines are durable and efficient. However, because they consume diesel fuel, a complicated mix of petroleum components, they produce some pollutants. A small amount of the fuel exits the engine unburned. These airborne hydrocarbons can form larger particles in the atmosphere when they contact airborne dust and other particles.

Unlike gasoline engines, which may not get enough air into the cylinder for combustion, diesel engines operate with excess air, so emissions of carbon monoxide are very low, though still measurable. Carbon monoxide is a colourless, odourless gas that combines with blood and limits its ability to transport oxygen. Since the engines are consuming fuel and air and create heat in the combustion process, nitrogen from the air can be transformed into nitrogen oxides which are reddish brown gases that irritate the lungs and eyes.

Pollutants emitted directly from vehicles are not the only cause for concern. On warm, sunny days, hydrocarbons react with oxides of nitrogen to create a secondary pollutant, ozone. In many urban areas, motor vehicles are the single largest contributor to ground-level ozone which is a common component of smog. Ozone causes coughing, wheezing and shortness of breath. It can also bring on permanent lung damage, making it a cause of crucial public health problems.

So to reduce the impact of this in environment companies are working on new technologies and they found ELECTRIC VEHICLES as an alternative source to overcome pollution ,as defined in above sections there are 3 different modes of EV’s using are using electricity as the main power source to operate .

However, if we can see that the power generation in India is primarily depend on Coal in return causes more damage to environment as burning coal for power generation causes air pollution and increases the Greenhouse effect.

If the source of energy to power these cars doesn’t come from solar panels, wind turbines or even nuclear or hydroelectric, their CO2 emissions will be much higher. For instance, if the electricity used to charge (cars/other Electric Vehicles) comes from the burning of fossil fuels(in India it’s from primarily Coal), it doesn’t matter if the EV’s are not polluting while being driven, as this pollution was already released in some distant power plant.

Even the Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs) are polluting the land as the used lithium batteries are dumped on empty land which will subsequently piled up one day and turn into a large barrel land.

Because electric cars store energy in large batteries (the larger they are, the bigger their range is) that have high environmental costs. This happens because these batteries are made of rare earth elements (REE) like lithium, nickel, cobalt or graphite that only exist beneath the surface of the Earth and therefore depend on mining activities with very polluting processes.

So, in a nutshell, Electric vehicles are not zero emissions vehicles. We have seen that although they do not emit CO2 while being driven, they might do it in 3 other stages: during manufacturing, energy production and at the end of their life cycle. 

So, in India EV alone is not going to solve the Pollution crisis, we need to first rectify our source of power generation process. i.e. we should rely more on renewal energy for electricity generation along with we should be focusing on reusing the lithium batteries to reduce the dumping to some extent ,also we should be focusing on some other technologies (like Hydrogen vehicles)to reduce the pollution level created through automobile industry .

Along with we need to rectify other sectors which are damaging the environment in a bigger aspect, most of the manufacturing industry are polluting the water ,Real estate business is at its peak now but the cement being used is a key player in polluting the air. Chemical industries and products and goods manufacturing industries all are a big contributor of pollution in some way.

As an outcome we can conclude that Economy is inversely proportional to environment health.

The Solution is not a simple straight forward statements ,however precisely we can say that we need to search for more renewal and clean sources of energy ,clean technologies ,less usage of artificial products and a lot required to be done .We need to create a new way to make the earth again in its natural form .

Thanks