Switching from an ICE vehicle to an EV cuts emissions significantly, but the impact depends on electricity sources and battery production. In India, coal-heavy power still makes EVs emit about half as much CO₂ as ICE bikes. Though manufacturing batteries is emission-intensive, long-term EV use with cleaner grids ensures net environmental gains.
Perhaps the biggest culture shock that might differentiate Indians from those yonder in the West is our attitude towards vehicles with fewer than four wheels. Desi kids move from crawling to bipedalism and then immediately swerve into the realm of scooters and moped,s and motorbikes, often becoming adept at them years before they are actually legal to be so. Meanwhile, the same two-wheeled bread-and-butter of India is treated like a taboo death machine in the “developed” nations of our world.
Thus, many Indian children grow up revering and glamorizing the internal combustion engine (ICE) motorbikes they see around them, in magazines, and on TV. So it can understandably be a hard plunge to move from a world of CC’s and ‘Mileages’ to ‘Watts’ and ‘Certified Range’. But say you finally took the leap – you decided to forgo the world of long-distance tours in favour of a small chance at fixing the planet. How deep is the band-aid you just applied to the Earth suffering?
To answer that question, let’s look at one aspect of the ICE routine maintenance you will likely not miss, thanks to your new EV purchase: the emission tests.
Emission norms came to being around the early 1990s in India to help address the issue of deteriorating air quality in the country, and the pollution board has continued to make these standards stricter over time.
Any ICE vehicle you purchase today will be fitted with emission outputs as per the Bharat Stage VI, which limits carbon dioxide to 1000 mg/km, hydrocarbons to 100 mg/km, nitrogen oxides to 60mg/km, and particulate matter to 4.5 mg/km for petrol vehicles. Similar percentages have been set for diesel fuel vehicles as well.
With these numbers — and the assumption that your previous ICE bike was BS VI-legal — you can calculate the maximum emissions that you might have belched into the world. For instance, say your commute to work requires around 30 kilometers of travel every day. Multiply that over a month, and you’re left with a disgusting platter of 900 grams of carbon dioxide, 90 grams of hydrocarbons, 54 grams of varying nitrogen oxides and 4 grams of particulate matter.
More realistically, however, the Indian govt. has a pretty nifty website that helps you calculate your monthly household and transportation footprint. For an ICE vehicle with an average mileage of 50 kmpl, this rounds up to approximately 41 kilograms of CO2 equivalent per month, or 500 kilograms per year.
This means that, by switching to an EV, you’re reducing your emission footprint by seemingly several kilograms of greenhouse gas emissions per day! These numbers have been calculated by assuming that your ICE vehicle was at its polluting naughtiest, of course, but they do help you feel better about your choice to give up long-distance tours to help save the environment, one month at a time.
However, there is still one caveat. The electricity that fuels our EVs has to come from somewhere. In a place like India, the issue is that somewhere is usually rooted deep in a fossil fuel dependence.
According to recent data, over three-quarters of India’s electricity comes from unclean sources, with most of it being coal-powered. In Bengaluru, one of the leading EV-adopters in India, each unit of electricity was associated with 0.716 tonnes of CO2 for the 2022-2023 fiscal year.
Using this data and an EV with a range of 120 kilometers, you’re going to have to charge your vehicle 7.5 times over the course of the month. Considering that it takes about 3 units of electricity on a full charge, your monthly commute will incur about 22.5 units of electricity per month. Good news? This amounts to a budget of less than Rs 250 every month. Bad news? That’s still 21 kilograms of CO2 equivalent per month, or 251 kilograms per year — exactly half of an ICE vehicle.
However, the problem is still the fact that massive amounts of energy are used to manufacture electric vehicles wink wink batteries wink wink. In fact, MIT says that building a new EV can produce around 80% more emissions than building a comparable ICE vehicle. This is because the modern EV batteries require a ton of specialized materials, such as lithium, cobalt, and nickel, that need mining and heating, and processing— all energy-intensive processes. Some sources even cite that for a single electric car to break even, emission-wise, it must be used for a minimum of eight years.
You have to note that these numbers neither take into account the oceans of water pollution and toxic fumes associated with the mining of precious battery minerals, nor the extra fumes from handling and transportation of our fuels. However, one silver lining is the fact that, despite all of this, most accounts note that EVs still emit fewer emissions in their lifetimes compared to standard ICE vehicles.
Therefore, while EVs offer clear benefits in reducing emissions, their true environmental advantage depends on the source of electricity and the long-term use of the vehicle. Transitioning to cleaner energy sources, decarbonising the grid, and improving battery production processes will be crucial to maximising the environmental benefits of EV adoption.
