Dr. Atul R Thakare

It’s been two years now that I have been using an EV (an electric bike, rather the first e-bike of India) and a lot has changed in the last two years in the electric mobility space which can be called a revolution. From the last couple of years, COVID 19 had adversely impacted the penetration of EVs in India and so the rEVoution which was supposed to take place by mid-2021 is visible now. The automotive industry is going through a transition switching to alternative and less energy-intensive options of mobility due to two reasons: first the rising fuel prices and then the environmental concern. I haven’t seen such excitement for electric vehicles as I am seeing right now. At the start of 2020, there were hardly any EVs on the Pune roads, whereas in 2022, I could see at least a dozen vehicles with green number plates plying on the same roads in Pune. However, there’s still a long way to go. EV demand got a fillip of late as fuel prices soared, making many buyers of conventional vehicles...

  EV is the future, people say. So last December, I got the EV, an electric bike (to be specific) for the generation WHY in my hands. After driving a 1.5 L petrol engine car for regular commute there were few solid reasons for this experimentation: the rising price of petrol, heavy traffic in Pune and contribution towards a clean environment. Still, when you are used to the swift and comfortable drive in your car, it’s difficult to adjust to something that’s not even been tried by anyone in the city for the daily commute. I was one of the first ten customers to own the e-bike in Pune and after a year, I would like to share my first-hand experience with the EV enthusiasts through this article. Driving a four-wheeler in a congested city for a daily commute has got its own disadvantages. If you have the windows of your car open at a traffic signal, the carbon emissions from the nearby vehicles would definitely choke up your lungs for a while. And this was the trigger for me to boo...