A halt at the EV charging station 

Too many Electric vehicles (EVs) are visible in my locality lately. Although the EV battery technology was commercialized long back in India, may be, these vehicles are being preferred more now a days. 'To save the petrol expenditure' is the answer I got when I enquired a few users about their choice. 

One evening, while driving back home, I spotted an EV charging station outside a park. Out of my usual curious nature, I pulled over to have a closer look at the charging station. It consisted of 2 electricity output plugs similar to a petrol pump, a QR code to enter vehicle details and a meter that displayed the amount of charging done and time left to reach full-charge. It had a 60 KW charging capacity. I wanted to try it out, but mine isn't an EV.  I stood looking at it for sometime and left when the passerbys started staring at me.

After a few days, me and my friend drove for a weekend hangout. And guess what- she had got her brand new EV two wheeler. We travelled a lot that day, I told her about the charging station and she agreed to try it out. After scanning the QR, we filled in details like vehicle and charger type using the Bijlify app and made the payment. The charging plug was unlocked and the charging began once we connected the cable to our vehicle's charging port.

Regular vehicles work with the help of an internal combustion engine. The fuel used, most commonly diesel or petrol is consumed inside the combustion chamber that provides the vehicle with the energy required for locomotion. The electric vehicles, on the other hand have an electric motor in place of the internal combustion engine. The motor is powered by an internal battery that acts as the energy source for the vehicle. The battery requires regular charging through the inbuilt charge port of the vehicle. Just like our mobile charger acts as an AC to DC convertor, an EV vehicle charger too converts the AC received at the charging port during charging to DC for the battery. But this, being a very high voltage current is first converted to lower voltage and then transmitted to the electric motor that drives the wheels and moves the vehicle forward.

The initial purchase cost of an EV is more than the regular vehicle. But as some say, EV saves the regular fuel costs. Moreover, since it does not work through fuel combustion, it does not emit carbon dioxide- one of the culprits of climate change as being presented currently. Also, EVs aim at reducing the dependency on the conventional, depleting fossil fuels. But the irony is that the electricity on which an EV runs, comes through the burning of fossil fuels at the thermal power plants!

©Neha Kanase