Sounds good, but is it?

"A steady momentum has been building up in India on the clean and renewable energy front," wrote RK Misra. "The government has been working to effect a radical shift in our energy production and consumption patterns to reduce dependence on fossil fuels." As part of its policy "the government intends that all vehicles sold in India by 2030 should be electric". That is laudable but we Indians become wary when we are told that "it presents the government's vision of a shared, electric and connected mobility paradigm where mobility is a service based on an electric vehicle (EV) fleet, enabled by the convergence of low-cost technologies, smart designs, business model innovation and supportive policies." Indeed. Electric cars run on batteries which need to be charged. How long does it take? A full 300 mile charge for a Tesla takes 9.5 hours. Which means, that electric cars cannot be used for long drives. "Battery swapping" is a solution to this problem. Which means replacing an exhausted battery pack with a fully charged one. Tesla has applied for a patent on a system that would change a pack within 15 minutes. So, instead of petrol pumps there will be wayside stations where thousands of battery packs will be plugged in. Before that can happen we need guaranteed electricity supply 24/7 in every corner of the country. At present, large parts of India are without dependable supply. Power cuts are frequent even in the capital, new Delhi. Electricity will presumably be produced by solar panels, which are largely imported from China. Bids for solar projects has dropped to Rs 2.44 per unit, well below the lowest rate for thermal power. This is considered too low to be viable in the long term. Any rise in the price of solar panels from China will raise the cost of solar power and will put companies in financial stress. This being India, contracts are made to be broken. States, which signed contracts at a higher price are refusing to pay. They want to renegotiate at the lower price being offered at present. It all seems fantastic. Instead of fossil fuel people traveling by electric buses and taxis, not producing any polluting exhausts, charged with solar electricity, without the radioactive waste products of thermal power plants. Sadly, solar panels are difficult to dispose of because they are almost impossible to recycle. At present there is little recycling of the lithium-ion batteries of electric cars. They require large amounts of rare earths whose extraction is highly contaminating. Most likely, used batteries and solar panels will end up at garbage dumps, creating more hazardous mountains for the poor. Good intentions can suffer from unintended consequences. Especially in India.