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Friday March 29, 2024

Going green

By our correspondents
May 12, 2017

This refers to the news report, ‘India’s green car plan prioritizes electric vehicles over hybrids’ (May 09). A think tank in India headed by India’s prime minister, has prepared a new policy aiming to electrify all vehicles in the country by 2032. The government will provide incentives to the manufacturers of batteries and also those who set up charging stations for these vehicles. The move will cut India’s huge oil import bill. India’s power minister says that by 2030, not a single petrol or diesel car would be sold in the country. In the context of Pakistan’s scenario, we should also opt for the manufacture of electric cars. These cars are cleaner and quieter and in a lot of ways better than the cars run on petrol. Venturing into the manufacture of an electric car is in itself a big financial investment. Currently, the country is spending a huge amount of foreign exchange on the import of fuel. If the country has electric cars, no fuel import would be required as these cars are run on batteries. The car batteries should be of high standard, capable of having a long driving range. These batteries would be charged by the roadside charging stations set up for this purpose.

Samsung has unveiled a battery that can give electric cars a driving range of up to 500 kilometres on a 20 minute charge. It means that by charging this battery for 20 minutes, we can have a trip from Islamabad to Peshawar and back. The Minister of Planning, Development and Reforms should consider working on the project of manufacturing electric cars in Pakistan under the CPEC arrangement. The country should set up factories for the manufacture of batteries for these cars and pay subsidy to electric car manufacturers in the country.

Air-Cdre (r) Azfar A Khan

Karachi