Oil storage tanks and facilities of a Sinopec plant in Shanghai, China. Photo for representational purpose
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Union Minister Nitin Gadkari addresses the ‘20th FICCI Higher Education Summit 2025’, at Bharat Mandapam, in New Delhi, on October 6, 2025.
| Photo Credit: PTI

In the last episode, my colleague and host of Climate Economy, Kunal Shankar, spoke about the shifts underway in India’s transport sector, as it attempts to decarbonise. One among the many places where this transition is likely to be felt most is Coimbatore. That’s because this district is home to many of the smaller firms that form part of the automobile sector’s value chain catering to Internal combustion engine vehicles.

Coimbatore is one among the leading supply chain clusters in the country for the auto sector. Its journey as a component manufacturer for automobiles started almost six decades ago led by the foundries that made castings, factories that manufactured motors, and the demand from automobile majors in Tamil Nadu. 

In a district where streets of one or two room workshops, called micro or cottage industries, contribute to the economy, are there job losses, job shifts, or new jobs as the industries prepare for the transitions in the mobility sector? Is there adequate funding available for the MSMEs? Are these units plugged into the latest developments in technology? Let us drive into the auto clusters to understand better what’s happening on the ground.

Script & Presentation : Soundariya Preetha

Video & Editing: Shibu Narayan

New Delhi:

Kartikey Hariyani, the founder and CEO of Electric vehicle (EV) charging network Charge Zone, while speaking at NDTV World Summit 2024, explained why switching to EV makes Sense.

“In India, the purpose of an EV or a car is for personal mobility. 80 percent of the mobility requirement of an Indian consumer is less than 51 k a day. So, with this stat, EV becomes a natural choice for adoption but it also (poses) a question whether the cost makes sense. Then as an individual consumer, you will say I don’t need an EV or the payback is not really attractive,” he said.

Mr Hariyani, however, insisted that “there is good news around”.

“Two developments have happened in the industry so far. In the last two quarters, the cost of the battery has come down by half. The second good news is some of the OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) have initiated battery as a service which means battery and charging will effectively becomes your fuelling system. So, what you are going to buy will be a car without the battery cost, it means (it would be) equivalent to the cost of a petrol car,” he said.

Mr Hariyani stressed that one has to think through carefully in terms of how the recharging networks will be planned.

“For each of the EV segments, the industry players have started investing into this. Six years ago, standards got built into this. Later on, local ecosystem played a big part. Localisation did happen in terms of semiconductors as well as power electronics. Today we are ready with the chargers, localised both for three wheelers and four wheelers,” he said.

He also said that even though fast-charging is a key for adoption of EVs but it’s not just about cars but also buses and trucks.

“For a charging company like us, when we started off in 2019, there were green sprouts around electric cars coming into the market, then electric buses started coming. And today we see the launch of electric trucks. As a priority, I will enable inter-city mobility. In other words, charging infra on highways is our priority number one. We have electrified 33,000 kms of highways in India. Fast-charging is a cornerstone. But, if I invest into fast-charging only for cars, I won’t be able to make money even in my whole life time. Inter-city buses and inter-city trucks are going to be the biggest enablers,” he added.

Earlier in the day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi emphasised the importance of clean energy for a better future, stating that “clean energy is the need of the hour”.

At COP26, India committed to reducing projected carbon emissions by 1 billion tonnes by 2030 and achieving net-zero emissions by 2070. These commitments necessitate a rapid transition to renewables.

New Delhi:

Kartikey Hariyani, the founder and CEO of Electric vehicle (EV) charging network Charge Zone, while speaking at NDTV World Summit 2024, explained why switching to EV makes Sense.

“In India, the purpose of an EV or a car is for personal mobility. 80 percent of the mobility requirement of an Indian consumer is less than 51 k a day. So, with this stat, EV becomes a natural choice for adoption but it also (poses) a question whether the cost makes sense. Then as an individual consumer, you will say I don’t need an EV or the payback is not really attractive,” he said.

Mr Hariyani, however, insisted that “there is good news around”.

“Two developments have happened in the industry so far. In the last two quarters, the cost of the battery has come down by half. The second good news is some of the OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) have initiated battery as a service which means battery and charging will effectively becomes your fuelling system. So, what you are going to buy will be a car without the battery cost, it means (it would be) equivalent to the cost of a petrol car,” he said.

Mr Hariyani stressed that one has to think through carefully in terms of how the recharging networks will be planned.

“For each of the EV segments, the industry players have started investing into this. Six years ago, standards got built into this. Later on, local ecosystem played a big part. Localisation did happen in terms of semiconductors as well as power electronics. Today we are ready with the chargers, localised both for three wheelers and four wheelers,” he said.

He also said that even though fast-charging is a key for adoption of EVs but it’s not just about cars but also buses and trucks.

“For a charging company like us, when we started off in 2019, there were green sprouts around electric cars coming into the market, then electric buses started coming. And today we see the launch of electric trucks. As a priority, I will enable inter-city mobility. In other words, charging infra on highways is our priority number one. We have electrified 33,000 kms of highways in India. Fast-charging is a cornerstone. But, if I invest into fast-charging only for cars, I won’t be able to make money even in my whole life time. Inter-city buses and inter-city trucks are going to be the biggest enablers,” he added.

Earlier in the day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi emphasised the importance of clean energy for a better future, stating that “clean energy is the need of the hour”.

At COP26, India committed to reducing projected carbon emissions by 1 billion tonnes by 2030 and achieving net-zero emissions by 2070. These commitments necessitate a rapid transition to renewables.

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For Hamed al-Rafidain, a Saudi human resources worker, an electric vehicle offers welcome savings, especially since his other car is a fuel-guzzling four-wheel drive favoured by motorists in the desert kingdom.

The 39-year-old is part of a small but growing EV consumer base in Saudi Arabia, which hopes to become a hub for the technology as it seeks to diversify its economy away from oil.

Although the EV market in the world’s largest oil exporter remains small compared with the United States and China, it tripled last year to nearly 800 cars, according to Saudi business news outlet Al-Iqtisadiyah.

“What drove me to buy an electric vehicle was financial considerations,” said Rafidain, who spends up to 2,000 riyals ($530) a month on fuel for his off-road vehicle.

“Maintenance costs are also lower compared to a conventional vehicle, with no oil changes and no brake-pad replacements,” he added, pointing to the engine-free storage space under the hood of his new car.

Chinese EV giant BYD is expected to dominate the Saudi market. Its global rival Tesla of the United States has no dealerships in the Gulf kingdom.

With eight million residents, Riyadh experiences traffic jams that contribute to high pollution levels.

Rafidain said he chose an EV because of environmental concerns, noting electric vehicles “help reduce global warming in cities”.

For a little over $53,300, he bought a BYD that he mostly uses for short trips within the capital.

EV challenges

A lack of charging infrastructure and Saudi Arabia’s vast size mean that many view their EVs as suitable for shorter trips, rather than replacements for conventional vehicles.

Using an EV for travel outside the city was a “gamble, especially since the infrastructure is still underdeveloped”, Rafidain said, noting the range of current batteries is only about 400 kilometres (250 miles).

While BYD and Lucid install charging stations directly at customers’ homes, the Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Company (Eviq) is working to place them elsewhere, aiming for 5,000 across the country by 2030.

EV prices remain high in Saudi Arabia, where fuel costs are lower than in most countries, with a litre of petrol costing $0.62.

A vehicle from Lucid, which opened a factory in Jeddah last year after a billion-dollar Saudi investment, costs $92,000, but the arrival of BYD is expected to make EVs more affordable.

Industry expert Hossam Iraqi said EVs are less popular among Saudis owing to their size and performance in extreme heat.

“Most current electric vehicle production is small to medium-sized, which does not suit the needs of large Saudi families,” he said, adding the Gulf region’s extreme heat has an impact on battery efficiency.

Saudi surge

Salesman Hassan Mohammed expects strong EV sales this year, as demand grows at home and abroad.

“More than one car brand has opened its doors in the kingdom and now offers after-sales service, which has encouraged consumers,” he said at an exhibition in northern Riyadh, where Saudis test-drove cars.

Al-Iqtisadiyah reported in April that Saudi Arabia imported only 779 EVs in 2023, up from 210 the previous year, citing official Saudi statistics.

The country is also ramping up domestic production.

Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, PIF, now controls 60 percent of Lucid and has secured a deal with South Korea’s Hyundai to establish a plant in the kingdom for both EVs and petrol-powered cars.

Additionally, Saudi EV brand CEER, launched in 2022, plans to start production in 2025.

Earlier this year, Saudi Industry Minister Bandar al-Kharif said the country was aiming to produce 300,000 EVs annually, without giving a timeline.

Riyadh, targeting carbon neutrality by 2050, was also in talks with battery producers, he said.

For now, some still prefer hybrid vehicles, which use both batteries and petrol to go longer distances.

“The balance between electricity and gasoline is economical and convenient,” said Omar el-Shami, a 43-year-old Egyptian pharmacist, as he charged the car he bought for his wife.

“Things may change in the future,” he said.

Two people ride past the Red Fort in New Delhi on March 25, 2022, on Ather electric scooters. Representative image.
| Photo Credit: Ather Energy/Unsplash

The impulse to be sustainable — driven by the incessant pressure to lower our emissions — often manifests as lowering consumption and increasing reuse alongside reforms like tweaking consumer behaviour. Electric vehicles are the site of many of these changes, aided by state-led incentives and subsidies. Regenerative braking is an important mechanism in these vehicles that increases their energy use efficiency.

What is braking?

Braking is the mechanism by which an automotive vehicle in motion slows down. A vehicle moving faster has more kinetic energy than a vehicle moving slower, so the process of braking removes (mostly) kinetic energy from the vehicle. The law of energy conservation means this removed energy has to go somewhere.

For example, the disc brake is one type of mechanical brake: it works by pressing brake pads against a disc attached to spinning wheels, and uses friction to convert some of the wheels’ kinetic energy into heat. This is why the discs of disc brakes have holes cut into them, to dissipate heat better.

Another type is the induction brake: a magnet induces circular electric currents in a spinning wheel (made of a conducting material, like metal). These currents produce their own magnetic field, which opposes that of the external magnet. The opposition acts like a drag on the wheel and forces it to slow down. In terms of energy: the metal resists the flow of the circular currents and dissipates heat.

What is regenerative braking?

Regenerative braking is a brake system designed to convert the kinetic energy of the wheels to a form that can be stored and used for other purposes. As such, it creates a process in which at least part of the energy delivered to the vehicle’s wheels can be recovered in a situation when the vehicle doesn’t need it.

Regenerative braking is one type of dynamic braking. In an electric vehicle, of the types becoming common on Indian roads, a battery onboard the vehicle draws electric power from the grid and stores it. When the vehicle moves, the battery powers an electric motor that propels the vehicle, converting electrical to mechanical energy. This motor is called the traction motor.

During regenerative braking, the motor operates as a generator, turning mechanical energy back to electrical energy. In the vehicle, this means an electric current will be produced as the vehicle brakes, which is stored separately in a battery. In some other vehicles, especially trains, the current is fed back into the traction motor.

The other type of dynamic braking is rheostatic braking, where the current is sent to an array of resistors that dissipate the electrical energy as heat. It is often necessary for a vehicle to have both regenerative and rheostatic braking in case the electrical energy recovered can’t be stored or used right away.

How does a motor become a generator?

A motor has two essential parts: a rotor (the thing that rotates) and a stator (the thing that’s stationary). In a rudimentary design, the stator consists of permanent magnets or electromagnets while the rotor consists of current-carrying wires coiled around in loops. The stator surrounds the rotor.

When a charged particle, like an electron, moves inside a magnetic field, the field exerts a force on the particle called the Lorentz force. Whether the force will push or pull the wire in which the electron is moving depends on the direction of the electric current.

This is when the coiling helps. The current at the coil’s two ends moves in opposite directions, so the magnetic fields imposed by the stator will push on one end of the coil and pull on the other. And these opposing forces will continue to act on the two sides of the rotor until the voltage across the wire is constant. Thus, a motor converts electrical energy to rotary motion.

In a generator, mechanical energy from an external source can be fed to the rotor to induce a current in the stator.

Simply speaking, by switching the traction motor between these two configurations, an electric (or hybrid) vehicle can implement regenerative braking.

Does regenerative braking have downsides?

While it is a simple energy recovery mechanism, regenerative braking has some downsides. For example, it alone often doesn’t suffice to bring an electric vehicle to a halt. It has to be used together with a conventional system that dissipates some of the kinetic energy as heat.

Such a system is also required to prevent vehicles from backsliding downhill, which many regenerative brakes won’t prevent.

Another example is that the amount of energy a regenerative brake can recover drops as the vehicle’s velocity drops as well. This said, a regenerative brake can be beneficial for an electric vehicle’s energy-use efficiency in stop-start traffic.

Are there other ways to recover energy?

The design of a regenerative brake depends on the energy form to which the mechanical energy from the wheels is to be converted. An electric vehicle funnels it into a generator and obtains a current, which is stored in a battery or a supercapacitor.

Similarly, the mechanical energy can be used to increase the angular momentum of a rotating flywheel. Flywheels are especially useful because they can receive energy much faster than other such systems. For every unit increase in speed, they also store exponentially more energy. Engineers have been able to build flywheels with carbon-composites that, in a vacuum, can spin at up to 50,000 rpm. The flywheel can be linked to a reciprocating engine to manage or augment its output, like in Formula One racing, or to a gyroscope to help submarines and satellites navigate.

Recovered kinetic energy can also be fed to a pump that compresses air, which can be useful to start internal combustion engines.

U.S. President Joe Biden
| Photo Credit: Reuters

U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday unveiled a bundle of steep tariff increases on an array of Chinese imports including electric vehicles, computer chips and medical products, risking an election-year standoff with Beijing in a bid to woo voters who give his economic policies low marks.

Mr. Biden will keep tariffs put in place by his Republican predecessor Donald Trump while ratcheting up others, the White House said in a statement citing “unacceptable risks” to U.S. “economic security” posed by what it considers unfair Chinese practices that are flooding global markets with cheap goods.

The new measures impact $18 billion in Chinese imported goods including steel and aluminum, semiconductors, batteries, critical minerals, solar cells and cranes, the White House said. The announcement confirmed earlier Reuters reporting.

The United States imported $427 billion in goods from China in 2023 and exported $148 billion to the world’s No. 2 economy, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, a trade gap that has persisted for decades and become an ever more sensitive subject in Washington.

“China’s using the same playbook it has before to power its own growth at the expense of others by continuing to invest, despite excess Chinese capacity and flooding global markets with exports that are underpriced due to unfair practices,” White House National Economic Adviser Lael Brainard told reporters on a conference call.

Even as Mr. Biden’s steps fell in line with Mr. Trump’s premise that tougher trade measures are warranted, the Democrat took aim at his opponent in November’s election.

The White House said Mr. Trump’s 2020 trade deal with China did not increase American exports or boost American manufacturing jobs, and it said the 10% across-the-board tariffs on goods from all points of origin that Mr. Trump has proposed would frustrate U.S. allies and raise prices. Mr. Trump has floated tariffs of 60% or higher on all Chinese goods.

Administration officials said their measures are “carefully targeted,” combined with domestic investment, plotted with close allies and unlikely to worsen a bout of inflation that has already angered U.S. voters and imperiled Mr. Biden’s re-election bid. They also downplayed the risk of retaliation from Beijing.

ALSO READ | U.S. President Joe Biden signs law banning Russian uranium imports

Mr. Biden has struggled to convince voters of the efficacy of his economic policies despite a backdrop of low unemployment and above-trend economic growth. A Reuters/Ipsos poll last month showed Mr. Trump had a 7 percentage-point edge over Mr. Biden on the economy.

Free trade no more

Analysts have warned that a trade tiff could raise costs for EVs overall, hurting Mr. Biden’s climate goals and his aim to create manufacturing jobs.

Mr. Biden has said he wants to win this era of competition with China but not to launch a trade war that could hurt the mutually dependent economies. He has worked in recent months to ease tensions in one-on-one talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Both 2024 U.S. presidential candidates have sharply departed from the free-trade consensus that once reigned in Washington, a period capped by China’s joining the World Trade Organization in 2001.

China has said the tariffs are counterproductive and risk inflaming tensions. Mr. Trump’s broader imposition of tariffs during his 2017-2021 presidency kicked off a tariff war with China.

As part of the long-awaited tariff update, Mr. Biden will increase tariffs this year under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 from 25% to 100% on EVs, from 7.5% to 25% on lithium-ion EV batteries and other battery parts and from 25% to 50% on photovoltaic cells used to make solar panels. “Certain” critical minerals will have their tariffs raised from nothing to 25%.

The tariffs on ship-to-shore cranes will rise to 25% from zero, those on syringes and needles will rise to 50% from nothing now and some personal protective equipment (PPE) used in medical facilities will rise to 25% from as little as 0% now. Shortages in PPE made largely in China hampered the United States’ COVID-19 response.

More tariffs will follow in 2025 and 2026 on semiconductors, whose tariff rate will double to 50%, as well as lithium-ion batteries that are not used in elective vehicles, graphite and permanent magnets as well as rubber medical and surgical gloves.

A step Mr. Biden previously announced to raise tariffs on some steel and aluminum products will take effect this year, the White House said.

A number of lawmakers have called for massive hikes on Chinese vehicle tariffs. There are relatively few Chinese-made light-duty vehicles being imported now. Senate Banking Committee Chairman Sherrod Brown wants the Biden administration to ban Chinese EVs outright, over concerns they pose risks to Americans’ personal data.

India’s Finance Minister announced a new scheme to develop deep tech for defence purposes while presenting the Interim Budget for 2024-25.
| Photo Credit: SHIV KUMAR PUSHPAKAR

For tech-savvy youth, a corpus of ₹1 lakh crore will be established with 50-year interest free loans for providing long term financing or refinancing with long tenures and low or nil interest rates, announced Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman while presenting the Interim Budget for 2024-25.

“This will encourage the private sector to scale up research and innovation significantly in the sunrise domains,” she added.

The Finance Minister also said that a new scheme will be launched to develop deep tech for defence purposes.

On electric vehicles, she informed Parliament that government will expand and strengthen the sector through greater manufacturing and charging infrastructure.

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The government has allocated ₹1,500 crore for setting up semiconductor fabs in India under the Modified Scheme, she said.

Counting the achievements of Union Government, the FM said that the Skill India Mission has trained 1.4 crore youth, upskilled and reskilled 54 lakh youth. She added that 3,000 new Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) were opened.

Nirmala Sitharaman informed that in the last ten years 7 Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT), 16 Indian Institutes of Information Technology (IIIT), 7 Indian Institutes of Management (IIM), 15 All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) and 390 Universities have been set up in the country.

She briefed that ₹34 lakh crore worth of Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) has been achieved in the last decade, and it saved ₹2.7 lakh crore of government as a result.

More than 1360 Agricultural Produce Marketing Committees (mandis) have been digitised, doing a business of 3 lakh crore, she told.

FM informed the house that Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) has been instrumental in formalisation of the economy.

“Technological advancements are transforming lives and businesses, creating new economic opportunities,” she said.