courtesy : AENews
We have discussed about the hurdles like low range EVs and absence of widely distributed charging stations and how they can be solved in India.Now, we will discuss about another vital hurdle – Absence of mass production facilities for Li-ion batteries in India.
Absence of large scale lithium ion battery manufacturers
At present, all EVs are needed to have Li-ion batteries in them. For understanding this concept, we must know what are the benefits of Li-ion battery and what are its major chemicals.
Benefits of Li-ion batteries
- Li-ion batteries are rechargeable batteries
- Li-ion batteries are safer to use, provided precautions are taken during charging and discharging.
- Energy density of Li-ion battery is higher than that of NI-Cad battery.
Present Bottlenecks
The major set of chemicals components used to develop a commercial Li-ion battery are Lithium, Nickel and Cobalt .
There is no existing Li-ion battery mass-production facilities in India (as on February 2018). Most of these batteries are being imported for commercial use in ATMs, Mobile tower power backup and EVs.
Solutions to overcome Li-ion battery manufacturing hurdle
I have done some research over it and found that there are two prominent solution :
1. Setting up of large-scale Li-ion battery manufacturing unit for all EVs
This is the most obvious solution. Presently, big energy players and automobile manufacturers like Reliance, Adani, Suzuki, JSW and Hero are in race to develop multi-billion dollar Li-ion battery manufacturing plants in India.
These plants will not only produce batteries for EVs but also for power backup of ATMs and Mobile Towers.
Suzuki Motor along with Toshiba Corp will invest around Rs 1,150 Crores for a new unit to produce Li-ion batteries which will provide electric batteries and electric packs for cars manufactured by Maruti Suzuki India Limited and Suzuki Corp.
This plant is going to be commissioned on 2020. The good news is that this plant will also be open to supply batteries to other manufacturers as a part of Vendor-OEM arrangement.
2. Commercial use of Solid State Battery
First, I will let you know the benefits of Solid-State Batteries:
- Solid-State batteries are safer than Li-ion batteries due to absence of liquid electrolyte.
- They have longer life span.
- Solid-state batteries can pack twice as energy as in Li-ion batteries.
You can find out that solid-state batteries are superior to Li-ion batteries. But, the efficient form of solid-state batteries are still not yet developed by scientists. Once it is developed, it will facilitate EVs growth in India.
Wrap Up
Once the large-scale manufacturing units of Li-Ion batteries are developed , it will highly contribute to the faster growth of EVs in India. Do you think that start-ups can help in this? let us know in the comments below.