Why India Is Turning Old Vehicles Into Electric Ones
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Why India Is Turning Old Vehicles Into Electric Ones
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlGxk4jHC2Q
Delhi is one of the most polluted cities in the world, with vehicles responsible for nearly half of its air pollution. But instead of replacing millions of cars and trucks, a new approach is gaining attention: converting existing vehicles into electric ones.
At workshops near the Indian capital, old diesel trucks are being retrofitted with electric powertrains — extending their lifespan while cutting emissions and costs. The process is faster and significantly cheaper than buying new electric vehicles.
But can retrofitting scale fast enough to make a real impact? And could this approach offer a blueprint for other megacities struggling with pollution and the cost of electrification?
-
Why India Is Turning Old Vehicles Into Electric Ones
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlGxk4jHC2Q
Delhi is one of the most polluted cities in the world, with vehicles responsible for nearly half of its air pollution. But instead of replacing millions of cars and trucks, a new approach is gaining attention: converting existing vehicles into electric ones.
At workshops near the Indian capital, old diesel trucks are being retrofitted with electric powertrains — extending their lifespan while cutting emissions and costs. The process is faster and significantly cheaper than buying new electric vehicles.
But can retrofitting scale fast enough to make a real impact? And could this approach offer a blueprint for other megacities struggling with pollution and the cost of electrification?
@donelias No and no. It most likely can't scale fast enough, and it's not likely to be a blueprint for that reason.
And I'm painfully aware that this is not the answer everyone wants, but I'm still pretty sure it is the correct one.
Creating drivetrains, battery packs, battery management systems, charging mounts and human interfaces for a huge variation of old trucks of different sizes, makes, models and ages is a slow process, and once you factor in the approval process it all takes to long to be efficient.
Add to that, that for 40% of the price for a new vehicle, you still have an old vehicle. Brakes, suspension, bearings and all the 12V components are still old and worn, and will still require maintenance.
Financially this could be a trap that you could not escape - once you added the conversion kit to your old truck, you basically swore an oath to maintain the old rust bucket for the next decade.
Simple, affordable new trucks with common parts and technology would make a far better value proposition in my view - and all of this would still need a giant upgrade to the charging infrastructure in order to work.
-
Why India Is Turning Old Vehicles Into Electric Ones
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlGxk4jHC2Q
Delhi is one of the most polluted cities in the world, with vehicles responsible for nearly half of its air pollution. But instead of replacing millions of cars and trucks, a new approach is gaining attention: converting existing vehicles into electric ones.
At workshops near the Indian capital, old diesel trucks are being retrofitted with electric powertrains — extending their lifespan while cutting emissions and costs. The process is faster and significantly cheaper than buying new electric vehicles.
But can retrofitting scale fast enough to make a real impact? And could this approach offer a blueprint for other megacities struggling with pollution and the cost of electrification?
Warum gibt es keine deutsche Tonspur?
DW sendet doch in Deutsch, Spanisch und Englisch. -
Warum gibt es keine deutsche Tonspur?
DW sendet doch in Deutsch, Spanisch und Englisch.@cmister26 it's a different YouTube channel from DW, I think
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@cmister26 it's a different YouTube channel from DW, I think
I don't finde it.
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@donelias No and no. It most likely can't scale fast enough, and it's not likely to be a blueprint for that reason.
And I'm painfully aware that this is not the answer everyone wants, but I'm still pretty sure it is the correct one.
Creating drivetrains, battery packs, battery management systems, charging mounts and human interfaces for a huge variation of old trucks of different sizes, makes, models and ages is a slow process, and once you factor in the approval process it all takes to long to be efficient.
Add to that, that for 40% of the price for a new vehicle, you still have an old vehicle. Brakes, suspension, bearings and all the 12V components are still old and worn, and will still require maintenance.
Financially this could be a trap that you could not escape - once you added the conversion kit to your old truck, you basically swore an oath to maintain the old rust bucket for the next decade.
Simple, affordable new trucks with common parts and technology would make a far better value proposition in my view - and all of this would still need a giant upgrade to the charging infrastructure in order to work.
@madsenandersc I'm not an expert in truck manufacturing and maintenance, but coming from a developing country I can see how some companies do buy and maintain old trucks, I don't know the specifics of the Indian truck market. Maybe it's better to buy new trucks if you have economic resources, maybe it's better to extend operational life of work vehicles for environmental reasons, maybe multiple things can be wrong or true depending on the context, maybe multiple strategies can push electrification forward without being perfect. I don't know.
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@madsenandersc I'm not an expert in truck manufacturing and maintenance, but coming from a developing country I can see how some companies do buy and maintain old trucks, I don't know the specifics of the Indian truck market. Maybe it's better to buy new trucks if you have economic resources, maybe it's better to extend operational life of work vehicles for environmental reasons, maybe multiple things can be wrong or true depending on the context, maybe multiple strategies can push electrification forward without being perfect. I don't know.
Oh, for sure - there are no hard and fixed answers here. I'm no expert in trucks either, but I do know a little about retrofitting things, and using 40% of the price for a new truck to retrofit a new drivetrain to an old truck seems like a somewhat reckless endavor - and the older the truck, the more reckless it becomes.
To be honest I'm mostly concerned for the truck drivers who might be tempted by this as a way to save 60% and keep their business running, only to experience a major malfunction with the rear differential or the main axle and having to shell out a large amount of money on maintaining an old truck because now the money for a new truck is gone.
I grew up on a farm, and my father had to make this kind of decision more than once, and sometimes it worked out OK and the machinery kept going, but a couple of time he had to concede that the money was gone, and all he was left with was some old, basically worthless iron that could not do the job.
I especially remember one year when a building project ran way over budget and rain made the harvest difficult, and our old combine broke down trying to cope. Dad ended up renting someone to harvest for us, and it almost cost us the farm at the end of the year. I'll never forget the desperate way he tried to fix that old combine but couldn't.
