With the advent of the 'Rambo-mobike' culture and the craze for the owning an automobile, it is pretty difficult to sell the concepts of pedaling a bicycle to the commuters of the this world.In contrast to the glitter and glamour of owning a high powered vehicle, there is a certain social stigma attached to the use of bicycle as a mode of urban transport. The fact remains that all the bike-rich countries, like Holland and Japan are those nations of the North whose satisfaction-level for either fast bikes or long cars has already reached the peaks. The Third World commuter would never go for the bicycle until and unless he is poor to purchase any motorized vehicle for individual transportation. No doubt, a major chunk of the urban population travels in local buses not because it is efficient but simply owing to the fact the individual per se is not in a position to buy a scooter or motorcycle (or moped, for that matter). Secondly, he does not want to lower his 'social status' by using a bicycle. After all, it is still considered a poor man's vehicle. So till the development paradigm takes a full circle and the ardent desire for the motorized transport dies its own death, the emission from the two-wheelers, three wheelers, cars and buses will continue to affect the health of the third World urbanite in terms of respiratory diseases. Electric Vehicles: The Middle Path This calls for an intermediate or a 'middle path' solution to the urban transportation problem -electric vehicles ranging from electric mopeds to local city buses. This option has to be seriously looked into for evolving an optimum mix of energy efficient and non polluting vehicles run on renewable energy sources like the solar power. The challenge, however, is to match the technical upgradation of such petrol free vehicles with their economic feasibility. If we are able to come up with such an appropriate network of solar-based electric transportation by even the year 2010,all of us would be enjoying the smooth and silent rides in electric vehicles. Pragmatically speaking , the time has come to review the electric vehicle scenario in the past one and half centaury of its existence, especially in the context of the Third World urban transportation. The invention of the lead acid battery in 1859 and technical innovations later on sparked a glimmer of hope for the electric vehicles. Somehow, they could never take on sparked a glimmer of hope for the vehicle off due to the high cost and low range factors.However,efforts to design a viable electric transport continued. This very year (i.e. 1996),Renault car company has built an electric car, called 'Hymne', which consumes less than 1kw of electricity per hour and attains a speed of 125 kilometers per hour. This could be the vehicle taking us into the 21st century. Our own Anil ananthakrishna of Bangalore created an electricity driven motorbike - Vidyut-24 in 1982.His venture received no support from the public or the government. An electric two-wheeler costs more than a conventional one, but the middle class-the users of the two-wheelers-is not willing to pay the extra price. Its priorities are different!Anit is now busy selling his electric vehicles to Holland and America and has shifted his base to the US. Talking about energy-efficiency, an electric scooter simply needs electric energy equivalent to just half a litre of petrol to traverse 100 kms.To commute the same distance, a petrol-driven scooter requires no less than two litres of petrol. This economy apart, an electric scooter neither creates noise nor pollution of any kind. In fact,Ananthkrishna has also developed an electric auto-riskhaw whose operating cost is competitive with the petrol driven one. statistics reveals than an auto-rickshaw on Delhi roads wastes three-fourth of its petrol-intake by emitting out the unburnt in the shape of smoke. "A two-stroke engine, by its very design, emits more smoke than four stroke engine and is the major cause of pollution on urban roads", according to the Washington-based World Watch Institute. An electric motorbike consumes only one-fourth of the energy consumes a petrol-run motorcycles of the same capacity. Bangalore has over half a million motorcycles and scooter consuming approximately 360 Giga watts hours (360 million kwh), annually, in calorific values. If these two-wheelers could be run on electricity, 75% of the energy consumption level could be reduced. The cost of operation of a scooter or moped is quite comparable to the conventional counterpart. but, the design and installation of the electricity generating device necessity calls for an initial additional outlay adding to the cost to the vehicles. The benefits, of couse, far outweigh this constraints. The urgent need of the hour is a change in the transportation-policies of the Third World government-friendly and people-friendly urban transportation -with electric buses, scooters or mopeds, moving cohesively on the road. The bicycles will always be there and good for health too! |
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