Prism - 1

Pilanipictures is starting off a series of interviews, Prism. 

We pose seven questions to eminent (mostly) and/or popular (again, mostly) personalities across various fields. Occasionally, we also cover mango men who wish to turn into celebrities or even those who are simply ready to respond to our seven questions. The queries are usually generic, but over a period of time they will get deeper and more interesting (evolution consumes time). But we are sure that the replies we get will unclog our minds and open our eyes.

The inaugural episode is by Sivam Sabesan, Managing Director India of CharIN e.V. CharIN, a non profit organization that is in the space of electric vehicles (EVs). Prior to this, from 2010 to 2017, Mr.Sabesan worked with Renault Nissan handling EV charging regulations. During the period he was also a member of SIAM’s Frontier Technology Group. Mr.Sabesan has been involved in policy decisions on EVs in India for close to a decade. He is acknowledged as an expert in EV battery packs and charging infrastructure. 

There is so much noise about electric vehicles (EV)... By when is the silent burial of the Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) expected? 

I really don't see the ICE going away. Even if EVs become mainstream in a decade or two, there are some applications like Jet Aircraft and Long distance trucking, which have no alternative to ICEs. Electrification of the powertrain is however going to be much faster. You will see more Mild Hybrids and Full Hybrids from OEMs, but the ICE is still going to be around for a long time. The ICE has been written off many times before and it is still around 120 years later. So even though the EV revolution seems to be upon us, it is by no means a foregone conclusion 

Is it true some of the Indian majors like Maruti Suzuki is going to produce only electric vehicles (EVs) from 2020?

No. Maruti Suzuki has announced that they will launch an EV in 2020 and they will launch more hybrid versions of their powertrains. But no OEM has yet announced that they are moving to fully electric vehicles yet. The key qualifier is the term 'fully electric'. Most press releases confuse the term 'electrified vehicles' (meaning hybridization) with fully electric vehicles.

We see battery-operated vehicles in places like railway stations, parks, etc. Is it the same EV technology that we are talking about?

Conceptually yes. All Electric vehicles have a motor, a controller and a battery pack. Road going EVs would have a different component specification but would still use the same components.

What is the impact of the EV revolution on the oil kings like Saudi Arabia and Venezuela?

The EV revolution, like every other revolution will have its winners and losers. But even a significant penetration of EVs would hardly slow down our global requirement for oil in the near term. Post 2025, there might be a realignment of oil supply and demand, but not just yet. In the near future, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela have more to fear from internal politics than EVs. 

What are the new employment opportunities that the EV sector would bring us?

Advanced materials, electronics and computing sectors will gain. But again, automotive technology has been changing pretty fast over the decades, so this is only a continuation of the trend.

For an average urban user, with say about 20-25km drive a day, how do the total costs of ownership compare between the existing cars, existing EVs and the future EVs?

For the average user, an electric vehicle is still very expensive compared to a normal ICE vehicle. That is largely due to the cost of the battery pack. However, battery packs are becoming cheaper and EVs should become more affordable in the near future. In addition to the cost advantage of operating an EV, they also offer significant improvement in driving comfort in the city as well as significantly lower maintenance. We therefore expect that a lot of consumers will switch to EVs, when they afford it and most of them will permanently say bye to the IC engine

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Mr.Sivam could be reached at India@charinev.org

Viper - the Genesis

For your comments :)

Insect side

Close your eyes for a moment and quickly think of an insect.
Done?

Recently, I watched a 3-D movie at a science museum. When one of the butterflies came fluttering out of the screen towards me, I could only fondly recollect MDK (My Dear Kuttichattan, 1984) I had seen on a big screen more than three decades ago. Some evergreen (3-D) memories: the slipping red cherry from the cup-ice cream that you thought you almost caught, dancing skeleton in the classroom and colourful balloons playing in the sky. Today I can only sit in awe of the vision that the MDK creators had. Those were the times we were coming to terms with the world of mindless masala movies struggling with basic camera tricks, and here was a man with guts and energy to make and release a regional 3-D movie. Vision. Hats off! 

Coming to the science museum, though there were some butterflies and attractive flowers, the movie was on, hold your breath.. insects. Title: Bugs. Personally I like insects (I am not an entomaniac, btw) or at least I do not hate them. But as expected, most of the audience twitched and some even conveniently removed the 3-D glasses - when a mantis caught hold of a housefly-type insect and - pulled out its well-formed head with compound eyes et al, and clumsily munched it, while the headless fly-body was still trying to release itself and somehow perform its flight to freedom. 

And it was not the only such scene. There was this robust green lizard that caught a grasshopper-type insect with its sticky tongue; there was this group of tens of insect eggs, yellowish in colour, translucent,  and (in slo mo and in 3-D) the eggs were getting hatched one by one and a form of larva was coming out of each one of them; the larvae did not fall off; they were holding on to the leaf that had the eggs by a shiny, fine streak of thread made of glue. 

Again, many took off their glasses. 

Perhaps we are hardwired to hate insects or perhaps it has been taught when we were running around in diapers. Do we fear insects? Or is it just that they are repulsive to look at? Now coming to the question, what did you see when you closed your eyes? Most of us would have seen one of these - mosquito, housefly or cockroach. (Some, bedbugs too.) I too hate these forms, but there are millions of other insect species,  that include the 'beautiful' ones like butterfly, honey bee, ladybird, damselfly, pullayar ant, etc.

I think too may things are at work here - our notion of 'beauty', our preference for bright colours and attractive patterns, the first insect that stung the caveman, the locust swarm that ate away our crops, mosquito - the deadly household partner, cockroach - the ruler of the dark nights, and so on. But whatever be the reason, it is better to start liking every scene of Bugs, if not for anything else, at least for the simple reason that - the insects form the majority in our planet. It is said the number of such creatures in just one square mile of the Amazon forests is more than the total number of human heads on our planet. And in a democracy, even a fool would like to be on the winning side.

Recommended viewing:

• Karnan (Tamil, 1964) 
• Silence of the Lambs (Eng, 1991)
• Eega (Telugu, 2012)
• The Lord of the Rings 3 (Eng, 2003)
• I (Tamil, 2015)
• Memories of Murder (Korean, 2003)

(PS: On my office desk I have a mummified shiny, green beetle that a good friend had gifted me.)