I recently watched a TED talk by Shai Agassi on introducing electric cars on a mass scale. He concentrates on the infrastructure aspect more than technological imporvisation. His premise is simple: the battery is like an oil well; if we buy oil today & not the well itself, why should we buy a battery. So, the solution is to sell electricity & not the battery itself. He plans to create a network of electric stations (like gas stations) which will replace used batteries with new ones. The batteries will be owned by the provider & not the owner, and hence the owner has to pay only for electric use. His calculations show that this will allow an electric car to run at 8 cents a mile compared to 60 cents a mile for petrol!!!
Whether his calculations & planning holds true or not, i'm impressed by the fact that he has used infrastructure as a tool for improvisation. It is true that we take for granted our huge oil refineries & millions of gas stations as integral infrastructure to run our car. Today, the electric car is expensive not because of its basic cost, but because it does not enjoy infrastructure support at par with gasoline vehicles! To create that will allow a level competition... I think we have started to see this in India with the rise of CNG & LPG pumps everywhere, gas is increasingly supplanting petrol / diesel & public transport is encouraged to use these fuels!
It raises more important questions for me. Many technologies that we do not find economically prudent today, but more sustainable nonetheless may be victims of infrastructure support rather than anything else. We need to relook at our planning & infrastructure to see whether we are really planning for the future or just pushing our present? Imagine living without the internet today, & yet if India had not embraced the famous STD PCO with satellite linking and rise of last mile connectivity, we would still be internet disabled!No Infosys, no BPOs, just plain old industry....
Please watch the video here
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment