China’s ADM Group is taking a more basic approach to electric-vehicle manufacture than merely setting up a manufacturing plant in association with Pakistan’s Malik Group. Apart from the $240 million to go into the plant, which is to have the capacity to produce 72,000 vehicles a year, ADM Group also plans to put $90 million into 3000 charging stations, with the first batch of 30 stations due to arrive in the next 10 days. This will go some way to addressing one of the biggest problems facing EVs, and their adoption, in Pakistan, that of charging stations. The recent reduction of the tariff for charging stations (from Rs 71 to Rs 39.70 per unit) would be welcome, but it does not address the real problem, that the vehicles are presently prohibitively expensive. Even if a network of charging stations were to be established, there would also be the issues of mechanics who could handle the complexities of the batteries that powered the engines and of the fact that EVs do not have much resale value.
One of the main hurdles is the distribution system. It is not enough to put up a charging station; it is also necessary to get the electricity to it. The ADM Group has not yet made public any talks it might have had with the Oil Marketing Companies whose pumps at which the charging stations must be located. (Fuel pumps already form an appropriate network; the ancillary stories, car washes and tire stores will also be useful.) While petrol pumps now only have to be located where power can be delivered to operate the pumps, now the distribution companies will have to deliver much larger quantities of electricity.
Such problems are meant to be solved. The ADM Group does not plan to sell its entire inventory in Pakistan, even though the Sindh government has promised to buy 20 percent of its production, but to use Pakistan as a regional export hub. Transport is on the verge of a huge transformation, but the shift to EVs charged off the grid may be just a phase. What will happen when EVs can be directly charged from the sun? That seems the direction technology is going. And that too will be equally transformative, as EVs are..
