Auto rickshaws by Ronit Bhattacharjee

Idea for cleaner air: Electric rickshaws in India

In the backdrop of the Climate Change meet up going on at Paris, I thought why not share a thought that I have been brewing for some time about a way to alleviate this problem. Would love to get critical inputs and suggestions.

The Problem

In a previous blog, I had mentioned that bad air quality is a very tangible problem in India. Though burning fuel wood and bio-mass is a big contributor to this, exhaust from vehicles comes a close second. This blog is about that.

Electric vehicles is a dream dreamt by many. The job of a motor car is to convert any energy into mechanical energy in the most efficient way. In this case, it happens to be through battery powered motor. And the job of power plants is to convert any energy into electricity, so let them do that efficiently.

The biggest problem with electric vehicles is range anxiety, and that can be only solved through infrastructure that is not present in India yet. However, there is one class of vehicles that is aptly suited for this — auto rickshaws — which can kick start infrastructure development for battery operated vehicles.

The Plan

Convert auto-rickshaws into electric, and provide battery as a subscription. Auto-rickshaw owners will pay for the cost of conversion upfront, and pay a monthly fees for charged batteries and maintenance.

Notes:

1. This battery subscription/swapping idea has been tried by quite a few players across the world (BetterPlace, Gogoro) with various degrees of success.
2. This is similar to how the government had asked rickshaw drivers to convert their vehicles into CNG. Unfortunately, CNG is not all that clean and safe, especially when the problem is about CO2 emissions in addition to pollutants.

Why Rickshaws?

The characteristics of auto-rickshaws are-

1. Small to moderate range: They are mostly used for urban transport where the distances are not very large, after all you usually don’t go on a long drive in a rickshaw!
2. Standard models: There are only a few manufacturers of auto rickshaws and their models are quite standard. So economics of scale comes in handy here.
3. Clustering: Rickshaws usually cluster at certain locations, so providing swapping stations near those few locations can serve almost everyone.
4. Maintenance: Rickshaws need regular maintenance, however, the cost of maintenance for them has been steadily increasing. Also, rickshaw manufacturers have a conflict-of-interest in helping keep maintenance costs low because spare parts are almost as big a business for them as sales. Electric vehicles, on the other hand, needs very low maintenance so that works in favor for them.
5. Fuel availability: Rickshaw drivers relying on CNG need to queue up in long lines and waste time where they could be potentially earning money. This is because availability of CNG is centralized to a few pumps. Electricity, on the other hand is every where and so a lot less time will be wasted.

With these characteristics and a few more, rickshaws seem to be ideal to start creating an electric fleet for urban transport.

The Details

To convert a petrol or CNG auto-rickshaw to electric, the following components are needed-

1. DC Motor (~Rs. 30K)
2. DC-DC Controller (~Rs. 5K)
3. Battery Management System + Li-Ion Batteries + Battery Charger
4. Miscellaneous

Of these, an auto-rickshaw driver will need to buy 1. + 2. Capital investment by rickshaw driver: Rs. 35K

Batteries are the capex for us and opex for the rickshaw drivers. Assuming a rickshaw plies ~120 kms per day on an average. If just a single battery pack is to be used in a single day, it would need approx. 15kWh battery pack.

Assuming $150/kWh, this means each battery costs Rs. 150K (which is actually almost the cost of an auto-rickshaw).

So, how is this advantageous to the rickshaw driver? With the cost of CNG at ~Rs. 44/kg, and the mileage of a rickshaw at around 40kms/kg, plying 120 kms per day would cost Rs. 130 per day or Rs. 4000 per month. In addition, it costs ~Rs. 1000 per month for maintenance.

Current monthly opex of rickshaw drivers: ~Rs. 5000

On the other hand, with this approach, a rickshaw driver will have to pay less than Rs. 4000 (assuming life of batteries is about 10 years, a 30% rate over a 10 year period will be ~Rs. 4000 monthly).

The Challenges

Some of the challenges in this venture are mentioned here, but all of them have either already been solved elsewhere, or can be solved in a scalable manner using technology.

1. Security of batteries. Batteries are the critical piece for this to work and are quite expensive. There is a chance that a few folks might be tempted to not return the batteries.
2. Reliable electricity supply. An uninterrupted supply of electricity will be required to continuously charge the batteries, otherwise it could affect the livelihood of the rickshaw drivers relying on us.
3. Initial capex by rickshaw drivers. Rs. 40K is a big initial investment to ask for from rickshaw drivers.

Final Words

Electric rickshaws are already picking up steam in a few cities like Delhi. However, they use lead-acid batteries which have very poor range (less than 50 kms), very short life, unsafe especially at high temperatures, and would be a nightmare to dispose. For that, Li-ion or other solid-state batteries are better suited.

This is just one way to get the ball rolling on cleaner air in a way that is justified purely by numbers, without any altruism in the picture. Would love to hear your thoughts and ideas on this, or other ideas to fix the issue.