I think Reva is a cute car and I would like to own one of these electric contraptions. It seems like a lot of effort to manage the charging of the car though, especially even if one lives in an apartment on the outskirts of Delhi. And of course, there is hardly any “public” charging infrastructure.
I had recently written about what Shai Agassi’s Better Place (www.betterplace.com) is attempting to do to yank the world off oil for transportation and move into an electric mode. There is a small clip on the website on what an electric future would be like. I would put it in the must-watch category.
The latest issue of Harvard Business Review also discusses the Better Place model which will be a reality soon, in Israel at least.
One of the readers of my column on the electric future for transportation (publish some time ago) made a very good suggestion for ensuring public charging infrastructure –- install charge points at the new multi-level parkings being built across the country.
Even if the current population of electric vehicles does not justify large scale investment in charging infrastructure, there is certainly a good case for making the new parking lots that are coming up e-ready. In the long run, it will pay for itself.
Look around however, and you would see that electric transportation initiatives are being discussed –- if at all –- in individual silos and the sum of these parts is certainly going to be less than the whole !

Can a train service compete with an airline service?

The answer is yes.

In what has been described as one of the most lucrative air corridors in Spain — Madrid – Barcelona — the high speed bullet train has managed to grab traffic from the airlines.

This is because the high speed train is faster (partly because the entry and exit points are within the city rather than in distant airports) and provides services at par with airlines, according to a BBC report which quotes the director of Spain’s Alta Velocidad Espanola (AVE) high-speed service.

India is in the process of rolling out its basic metro service.

Should we be considering high speed rail lines instead of the basic bread and butter service?

Should we be considering a technology leap?

Remember, many Indians got a mobile phone, completely bypassing the landline phone phase.

They stepped directly into second generation mobile phones…and some may step directly into third generation (3G) phones.

Can we get to high speed rail in one direct leap?

It is a question worth considering!