Little Green Electric Machine

London has 900, producer Bangalore has 650, Kathmandu has 26. It comes in 2,000 customizable colours, and yet is always green. It can scurry around the narrowest of streets and save money while doing it. Fun, safe, comfortable, and cheap. That is how Reva, the only electric car in Nepal, describes itself in its brochure, not bothering to mention that it is also sexy, compact and trendy.

But among the 26 Revas on the streets of Kathmandu, only two are privately owned: by Kunda Dixit, the editor of Nepali Times, and entrepreneur Bal Krishna Joshi, founder of thamel.com. The reason: until the recent budget, a hefty 121 percent tax was levied on the relatively expensive car, making it grossly uncompetitive. At one point, the two-seater, which can accommodate two minors and two adults, cost an astronomical Rs. 2.2 million. Thanks to lowered taxes it can be had for Rs 1.29 million today, but the Reva still hasn’t been able to win over the hearts of the populace the way that the Maruti 800 has. “It is the taxes that make these cars seem prohibitively expensive. Right now, it’s mostly the foreign agencies that buy them, because they don’t have to pay taxes,” says Puran Rai, director of EcoVision, the sole dealer of Reva in Nepal.

It shouldn’t have to be that way, says Joshi, who is one happy Reva-customer. For him the Reva story was one of love at first sight. And it was not just about the looks either. The way that he waxes on about his baby, he’s talking long-term companionship, based on practicalities. “I wanted to be energy independent,” he says, adding that for him to wait in the long queues for fuel during frequent fuel shortages was just not practical. Despite the price tag of Reva—Rs. 2.2 million when he bought it four months ago—he is more than glad he made the purchase: “I travel a lot, probably more than 1,500 km a month, and it bumps up my electricity bill by only Rs. 2,000. Furthermore, it hasn’t broken down on me, and it is comfortable. I am very, very satisfied.” If Shrestha had instead opted for a Maruti800 with a respectable mileage of 15 km/litre, he’d today be shelling out Rs. 7,000 a month on petrol. Revving up his Reva to its full battery charge, on the other hand, consumes only 8 units of electricity. At Rs. 11 per unit, and 85 km per charge, the running cost is about a rupee a km. That’s less than half the costs a motorbike would run up. The overall running cost is probably what Reva had in mind when they made the claim that it’s a ‘cheap’ car. The savings add up. 

Extrapolate such savings to a larger scale, say a thousand cars, and the whole Reva pitch becomes more than mere hype. Bijay Man Sherchan, the chairman of the Electrical Vehicle Association of Nepal (EVAN), estimates that replacing 1,000 conventional engines with electrical ones would create a combined annual saving of Rs. 23 million, on maintenance, fuel, and tax. Extrapolate even further, and you’re talking green revolution.

But how do you sway the naysayers, who for example, pick on the Reva’s limited range of 80 to 90 km on a charge? Sherchan believes that 85 km is a very good range for an urban vehicle. A 2.5 hour-worth of battery charge is enough to have the Reva chugging along for 60 km at least. Considering that there are at least 6 hours of daily electric supply even in the worst of times, charging is not as big a deal as it’s been made out to be.

And even during the winter months, when the power outage problem is at its worst, says Rai, charging a Reva is as easy as charging a mobile phone or a digital camera. With a 220V high-frequency charger, the car can be charged from practically any 3-pin outlet. On top of that, if the government could only find a way to emulate some of the organisations that have taken the initiative to develop solar charging stations, the way that ICIMOD and GTZ have done, energy trouble for vehicles would be over. In fact, some donor countries are actually willing to help Nepal with such setups. The Japanese government had offered to help the government build several public solar charging stations in the country, but as with most ventures in the country, the ever-sticky problem of Nepal’s bureaucracy put paid to that.

Going green is not just a mantra used by treehuggers anymore, and indeed Nepal’s greening efforts outside Kathmandu Valley—the highly praised community forest programmes in the districts for example—are laudable. But the Capital itself has become a soot-stained, choking coop of pollution. Reva has already made its entry into the Valley, the owners are head-over-heels in love with it, and there are more than a few who are already ogling the babies. The government only needs to lower the tax on the car and find ways to get donors to fund the building of recharging stations, and many Kathmanduites will surely make the switch to green. If something like that were to happen, says Sherchan, that would help make the city cleaner and better, not just for us but also for our progeny. Reva, anyone?