• Home
  • EV News
  • Podcast
  • Videos
  • Vehicles
    • Sales
    • Electric Cars
    • Tata Electric Cars
    • Electric Scooters
    • OLA Electric
    • Electric Cycles
    • Electric MotorCycles
    • Electric Cargo Vehicles
    • Campus Vehicles
  • Categories
    • Debunking EV FUD
    • Real Life EV Stories
    • Community Charging
    • Buyer's Guides
    • How To Guides
    • EV Test Reports
    • EV Travelogues
    • EV Conversions
    • Events
    • Educate
  • Community
    • Discord
PluginIndia Electric Vehicles

Electric Car vs CNG Car : A Day In The Life

2/2/2019

8 Comments

 
By Abhishek Uchil
This article and the video embedded, is intended to look at the perks of being an electric vehicle owner. It is not intended to denigrate CNG vehicle owners, who are doing their part, whether inadvertently or otherwise, to not use OIL and save the environment. I'm an electric car and a CNG vehicle owner myself.
In the above video, we showed you what a normal day is like while driving an electric car or a CNG car.

You must have noticed that Amit was a bit frustrated today. The long drive in his CNG car took a lot out of him. I, meanwhile, felt quite fresh at the end of the day. Why? Because I drive electric. I’m going to share some data with you, and I have Amit here as well, who'll jump in with some points of his own. 

Charging an Electric at Home vs Filling Gas at CNG Pumps
Charging at home or using public charging points like the ones in malls is more convenient than enduring the long lines at petrol or CNG pumps. You guys saw how frustrated I was. If I had an EV, I could have just plugged in at home, but I had to stand in line and breathe in all that awful exhaust smoke.

The air that we breathe in cities is bad enough for our health. Imagine the effect of exhaust smoke!
Especially since you need to be healthy to change those tricky gears in a CNG car. 


Ride Quality And Effort
Changing gears and managing the clutch can get quite exhausting, especially in heavy traffic.
Electric cars have no clutches or gears, so I have a smooth ride wherever I go. Plus, there are no vibrations and no engine noise, so the ride is super quiet.

Emissions
Let’s talk about emissions. Electric cars emit fewer CO2 emissions than CNG, petrol, or diesel cars. A common bit of criticism about EV's  are that they are powered by grids that run on coal, which is as dirty as it comes.

However, here are some facts:
  • First, if Abhishek switched to solar power (which is an option he can only have in an EV), he can run his car on nearly clean energy.
  • Second, a large percentage of the grid is powered by coal plants. This results in CO2 emissions of about 32.13 g/km, factoring in power plant efficiency, transmission and distribution, etc. Please refer link below to understand the well to wheel data for an electric car and how this figure is arrived at. So for the electric car, the total CO2 emissions for today’s 40 km drive would be around 1,285 grams.
Petrol and diesel cars produce more carbon emissions, along with nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide. Burning fuel oil also produces ash particulates, which increase pollution. CNG cars emit greenhouse gases as well, but considerably fewer than petrol or diesel cars. Research from the Energy and Resources Institute, New Delhi, shows that the CO2 emissions for a CNG bus are around 729.74 g/km
The number is even lower for a passenger car like a small hatchback, around 100 g/km.  Links are given below 

For Amit’s CNG car, the total CO2 emissions for today’s 40 km drive would have been around 4000 grams.
So, an electric car, even if it’s powered by a coal-powered grid, emits far fewer emissions than a CNG car. But a CNG car emits fewer emissions than a petrol or diesel car.

​Economy
So thumbs-up on using a CNG! Also, electric cars are more economical on a daily basis than other cars. Amit’s CNG car provides around 20 km of range per kilogram. Amit filled up about 5 kg of CNG for today’s ride, which would give him about 100 kilometres range, In Mumbai, CNG costs Rs 45 per kg at the moment. So it cost Amit 90 rupees to drive 40 km. But my 40 km journey consumed around 4 units of electricity. At approximately 6 rupees per unit, that came up to only 24 rupees!


Plus, the mall I charged at in the afternoon offers free charging. Further, most businesses offer EV charging as a free value-add to their customers.

Final Words
None of this is intended to denigrate CNG cars.you’re driving a CNG car, you’re still doing your bit for the environment! If you cannot afford to buy an electric car yet or are not yet ready to take the plunge into the world of electric mobility, we implore you to at least consider a CNG vehicle! And we’re saying that as an electric mobility promotion channel! Why? Because when it comes to saving the environment, every little bit helps. However, if you do plan to buy an electric car, just go for it! There are affordable electric cars coming out in 2019 like Strom, which will cost around 4 lakhs. You can also buy an e2o Plus or a secondhand e2o. Premium models from Hyundai, Nissan, and Mahindra are on their way and will be here by 2019 or 2020. Tesla and Uniti are coming to India as well!

​So don’t wait. Go electric!


Reference links
http://www.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/files/CNG%20programme%20in%20India.pdf
https://www.climatetechwiki.org/technology/cng
http://www.pluginindia.com/blogs/calculating-well-to-wheel-efficiency-of-electric-vehicles
8 Comments
vighneswari1234 link
11/3/2019 05:56:36 pm

nice article. i can bookmark this

Reply
S D Patil link
19/10/2019 08:23:42 pm

Car price please

Reply
Lokesh
5/3/2021 05:41:53 pm

We can't say exactly Patil.One one company different prices.

UAE Carmarket link
17/12/2019 03:13:51 pm

This blog is quite enlightening! The points presented in this blog are really appreciable. I would love to read more blog post from you. Thanks for sharing.

Reply
Abhishek
12/2/2020 10:18:02 pm

I would like to know the mall that u mentioned that u use in Mumbai to charge the car for free

Reply
Manoj link
1/3/2020 01:13:40 pm

How much time an EV takes to full its range ????

Reply
Tarik
8/9/2020 04:14:19 pm

Due to flaring, the net co2 costs of CNG is nearly 0 (only the co2 used to drive the cng to the pumpstation). This article is thus invalid.

Reply
Ayush
10/11/2020 02:27:31 am

Its illogical to Opt for a highly priced EV when CNG kits are available at low rates.. and u can anytime witch between CNG and petrol, which gives u a phenomenal range. Whereas EVs are still something out of a comic book...the charging time amd range is devastating... CNG will be thw future for sure!!

Reply

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

Plug in india

About us
Advertise with us
Contact us

Privacy Policy
Terms of Service

Support US

Get access to exclusive perks
  • Become a YouTube member
  • Become a Patreon

Subscribe to our newsletter

© COPYRIGHT 2019. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
  • Home
  • EV News
  • Podcast
  • Videos
  • Vehicles
    • Sales
    • Electric Cars
    • Tata Electric Cars
    • Electric Scooters
    • OLA Electric
    • Electric Cycles
    • Electric MotorCycles
    • Electric Cargo Vehicles
    • Campus Vehicles
  • Categories
    • Debunking EV FUD
    • Real Life EV Stories
    • Community Charging
    • Buyer's Guides
    • How To Guides
    • EV Test Reports
    • EV Travelogues
    • EV Conversions
    • Events
    • Educate
  • Community
    • Discord