Edition 2: Electric Vehicles
Workshop Date and Timing : October 1st, 2016 & 9:30 am
Venue : IITM Research Park, Chennai
You can view the Brainstorming Workshop | Edition 2: Electric Vehicles Video here.
You can view the Brainstorming Workshop | Edition 2: Electric Vehicles Report here
Electric vehicles hold significant potential for increasing energy security, reducing carbon emissions, and improving local air quality. Transportation accounts for about one-fifth of global energy use, and passenger vehicles account for about ten percent of energy-related carbon dioxide emissions. With the rapid rise in personal vehicle ownership around the globe, demand for fuel will continue to increase along with carbon emissions unless there is a shift in transportation.
There are a variety of clean vehicle technologies and fuels in development and in use, but electric vehicles represent one of the most promising technologies for reducing oil use and cutting emissions. This market is still developing, however, and there are many challenges, particularly with technology integration, optimization, and scale-up.
This workshop will look at the technology challenges that exist and the R&D required for electric vehicles to be mass adopted, the economics and the market for EV.
Ashok Jhunjhunwala, is a Professor in the Dept. of Electrical Engineering, IIT Madras.
Chetan Maini, is the Founder and Advisor of Mahindra Reva Electric Vehicle Co Ltd.
Tarun Mehta Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Ather Energy.
Ashok Jhunjhunwala
Ashok Jhunjhunwala is Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Madras at Chennai, India. After his B.Tech from IITK, he got his MS and PhD from the University of Maine. From 1979 to 1981, he was with Washington State University as faculty. Since 1981, he has been teaching at IIT, Madras.
Dr. Jhunjhunwala is considered the pioneer in nurturing Industry -Academia interaction in India towards R&D, Innovation and Product Development. He conceived and built the first Research Park (IIT Madras Research Park) in India which houses over 100 R&D companies in its 1.2 million square feet built-up area.
Having made a mark in telecom, over the last couple of years he has focused on power and has come up with innovation to ensure that all homes in India get 24 x 7 power even in situation of extreme power shortage. Using his solar-DC innovation, he is focused on decentralised solar power and believes that by 2030, India should get 50% of its peak power from solar. As a chairman of Technology Advisory Group for Electric Mobility, he believes that 50% of vehicles in 2030 could have electric traction.
Chetan Maini
Chetan's experience as part of the University of Michigan's solar car team in 1990 that raced across the US and Australia, fuelled his passion for technology, environment and automobiles. This led him to co-found Reva Electric Car in India to design, manufacture and sell affordable electric vehicles.
He continued to work on his passion and built a company which now has vehicles in over 24 countries, Indias first platinum certified plant and was recognised as the top 50 most innovative companies of the world by "Fast Company Magazine" in 2013.
Chetan is currently investing and mentoring start-ups, on the board of several companies and working on his new venture ideas. technology that positively impacts society and environment!
Tarun Mehta
Tarun is a graduate of IIT Madras, batch of 2012, where he was actively involved with entrepreneurship activities by being part of the Entrepreneurship Cell (ECell, formerly C-TIDES). He headed C-TIDES from 2009-2010 and organized Indias first ASES student entrepreneurship summit in 2010. Due to the association with C-TIDES, Tarun has been actively working with entrepreneurs for the last 6 years.
After graduation, Tarun worked as a Deputy Manager at Ashok Leyland for 6 months before realizing that his true calling lay in building stuff. Together with Swapnil, his batch-mate, he started Ather in March 2013. Ather recently unveiled what is calls 'India's first smart scooter', an electric and connected scooter called S340