The electrification process of our fleet of almost 1.5 billion vehicles in the world would wold have drastic environmental benefits (and its concerns related to precious metal mining). As a measure to protect the exchange rate, the government introduced a vehicle import ban. The ban is expected to last throughout 2021. There is this news @ NewsWire that the government plans to prioritise electric vehicles when the import ban is lifted. But are we ready for an electrification? I don't think so!

Lack of Charging Infrastructure

As petrol vehicles need petrol, electric vehicles need electricity. The standard wall outlet can take 8 hours to charge a car. To speed things up there are super chargers. Let alone super chargers, how many charge stations have you seen around even in Colombo? The few that are there may be good for a Nissan Leaf, but can it be considered a "car" 🤭. The situation much worst outside Colombo (I am not sure they exist, do they?)

This would make people charge vehicles once they come home keep it plugged in over night. This brings us to the next problem, electricity generation in Sri Lanka.

Electricity Generation

There was a time when Sri Lanka ran entirely on hydro power. But that is not the case today. Sri Lanka heavily relies on Coal power (from the Lakwijaya power plant at Norochcholai) for the bulk of its electricity production. This effectively turns every electric car in the country to some thing not that better from a coal burning smoke train 👀

The environmental impact of power generation by means of combustion varies by fuel type. If you take natural-gas, petrol, diesel and coal and sort it on the basis of negative environmental impact coal would take a lead. This is one reason why the world is in a need to rid of their coal power plants. We just can't afford the new tech.

If you are wondering "what about Solar". Solar is not for peak demand. The demand for electricity peaks just before the sun rises and just after it sets. Unless you are going to buy some land in USA and draw a 20,000km long wire across half the globe, solar is not an option.

At present we can hardly can afford to keep the lights on at all times. I saw on news that the government is preparing to buy power from 2 private power plants to meet the demand. As history points out, a defect in a power plant will plunge the country in to darkness. Adding thousands of EVs that charge at home will have a similar effect by means of increasing peak usage.

China EV Goal

China is poised to be the largest EV manufacture. They will produce low cost EVs. Good right? Meh...

Are you aware about the Railway locomotive driver strikes recently? It was a case of faulty Chinese trains. If I remember correct there was a breaks related issue that led to accidents and mishaps. Guess who is blamed when an accident happens? The driver. They took union action to get the issue resolved.

Then you remember the PRR machine fiasco. Yes the one that broke because of an "unbalanced table" one. A typical case of "නටන්න බැහැ, පොලව ඇදයි". While the Chinese Embassy in Colombo bravely claimed victory over the table, I heard a news the machine never lived up to its advertised potential. When I asked about this on Twitter, I got blocked by the imbeciles running the account.

When they fail, you will try to contact them and ask to take responsibility. China way of taking responsibility is denial, ignorance and then blocking. You will end up being the bad guy that broke the Chinese car which was working when they sold it.

The most concern I have is the the danger these cars carry. You can throw away a gasoline car. Except for some plastics, the others will eventually erode. You can't just dispose an electric car. The battery pack is toxic and explosive. This will need proper recycling setup. Otherwise we will end up polluting ground water and the soil making the recent Coconut Oil Aflatoxin fiasco look child play.

The Loan Dragon (Shark)

How will we pay for these? Our economy has taken a major hit. Travel which brought in a lot of money almost seized to exist. Some uncertainties lie in the future of travel if we don't get the China Wuhan Virus aka COVID19 under control.

One of Sri Lanka's strong sectors is garments and PPE. While the sectors benefited from the pandemic they were not good enough to offset the economic devastation caused in the others.

We have gone from taking long term loans to settle long term loans to taking short term loans in terms of fancy "currency swap". Any major infrastructure development will have to on more loans. China is very happy to give loans. After all they are very famous for being loan sharks. The problem of such loans would be the strings that will come attached. I fear this is already in play. Some say the Chinese vaccines are going to be more of a testing stage in Sri Lanka. There was one news that China had only provided answers to one out of 11 questions asked. The that opposed the vaccination until all questions answered got sacked. Why do I see the shadows of a dragon dancing in the background?

I am really heart broken. I don't think this country has a real future. The country will gradually descend in to the abyss taking a course not that dissimilar to Myanmar. Protests will be blood baths and China will be there to protect their investment opposing UN measure with their veto power. We will enter the history books not as a proud nation but how not to fuck up things.

Conclusion

The idea of an electrified transport medium is exciting to any nature conscious person. But do we have the infrastructure to power them up? Do we have the finances to entertain an electric fleet? Isn't it better if such investment in power generation be done to increase industry that will generate foreign revenue?

I think in the next 10 years our best bet still is the Hybrid and Plugin Hybrid. They are proven solutions that are huge improvement over gasoline. Tax concessions should be given to increase their usage.

The electrification process should start with the government fleet in a macro level to test out and built up the charging infrastructure. That should start now. That way 10 years from now we will have some thing. Public transport (the likes of CTB) can also go electric at least in Colombo. Postmen can use mini electric vehicles to delivery post instead of walking in the hot sun. That will make the process so much more efficient.

When it comes to a time we have enough power generation to address the demands of EVs we can switch tax allowances to EVs.