Electric Vehicle News
IIT Madras has signed an MoU for an e-mobility pilot with Hitachi ABB Power Grids and Ashok Leyland to run electric buses in their campus. The electric bus will be manufactured by Ashok
Leyland and will make use of Hitachi’s ABB Power Grid’s flash-charging technology.
All the 3 organizations - IIT Madras, Ashok Leyland and Hitachi will run these electric buss for sustainable in-campus mobility of the students and staff of the institute.
On places like highways where a charging facility is hard to find, an e-bus with this solution can reduce the need to take the vehicle out of service for recharging every few hours or having a replacement bus ready.
"Combination of our robust buses with electric propulsion technology and flash charging..., can be the answer to the need for sustainable public transportation across the country" said N Saravanan, Chief Technology Officer at Ashok Leyland.
These electric buses coupled with the flash charging system, can save as much as 1,000 tons of carbon dioxide if a bus drives 600,000 kilometers per year. Also there are 30% cost savings of the operating costs when compared to a diesel bus. This offers great business value to operators and also helps the environment.
"The development of India's e-mobility charging infrastructure and increased deployment of electric buses is key to meeting the demand for sustainable transport solutions across India's rural and urban areas" said Bhaskar Ramamurthi, Director, IIT Madras.
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We have electric buses running in multiple Indian cities - Shimla, Jaipur, Pune, Mumbai, Bengaluru and many more. And these electric buses are performing great and are saving huge money for the city municipalities. Whenever we drive around in Pune, we watch these silent electric buses whiz past us.
Also Mr Nitin Gadkari, the Minister for Road Transport & Highways and the Minister of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises in the Government of India had inaugurated India's first inter city electric bus between Mumbai and Pune back in Feb 2020. Unfortunately the pandemic has resulted in less travel happening in air conditioned electric buses and that project is shelved for some time.
This project by IIT Madras seems interesting and if succesful multiple educational, industrial campuses and factories can adopt this model to get more electric buses on our campus roads.