for the Mobility, Economic & Sustainability issues of Sri Lanka!
Premier Business Publication “Financial Times” published a social media post (Feb 2024) headlined “Revitalizing Sri Lanka’s Economy: Unlocking Economic Growth through Modernization of the Transport Sector 
Discover the efficiency of new energy vehicles, covering more ground while reducing air pollution drastically! (The infographics here belong to the Financial Times. )
EV’s are a global phenomenon, and they offer great solutions to the environmental damage due to transport pollution and by reducing the carbon footprint. Although it has certain disadvantages so far the best personal mobility option, especially for a small country like Sri Lanka.
However, the leading question and the propositions are not the way forward for Sri Lanka. Let’s discuss along the FT memes here.
The developed and developing nations have realized the importance of public transportation and shifting from personal to public mobility. Needless to say for a country with a low GDP and per capita income is less than 4,000 USD the CARS are not sustainable, be it ICE or EV!
And they work on making ICE buses, trucks, and trains shift to electric, worldwide. The Srilankans Experts, especially the national media, in this case FT who published the below infographics should have considered the fact that more than the shift of EVs it is very much needed to improve public transport, being a country with NO National Transport Policy. You may read about it at the end of this.
Renewables are a great plus, and we may plan to power the EV with RE sources which needs to go hand in hand. However we need to focus on energizing our public fleet with Electric, ideally renewables first. And we need to have plans for that first!
but we should not miss the fact even EV’s increase the Congestion. Sri Lanka is not a country with a National Transport Policy, let alone a scrap policy to remove its aging fleet.
ලෝකයේ පොහොසත්ම රටක් වුණත් EV වලට කලින් Norway ඉතා හොඳ පොදු ප්‍රවාහන සේවයක් හැදුවා. බොහෝ දෙනෙක් කෙටි ගමනට පාපැදිය පාවිච්චි කරා. රජය ඒ සඳහා අවශ්‍ය යටිතල පහසුකම් උපරිමයෙන් දුන්නා. නෝර්වේ අපි වගේ පොඩි රටක් වීම EV වලට හොඳට ගැලපුණා. එමෙන්ම ඔවුන්ගේ පුන්රජනනීය බලශක්ති නිෂ්පාදනය අති විශාලයි.
It is not right at all to compare Norway with Sri Lanka, considering their status of Public Transport, Use of micromobility (Bicycles and walking), percentage of renewable generation, and the attitudes changed over time.
Home charging should be the way to go and DC fast-charging commercial applications are pricey.
A liter of Gasoline produces 9 kWh of energy on average, and a Diesel Liter produces 10 kWh (This may vary on quality and conditions). However, the efficiency in Kinetic energy is 20% and for petrol, it is about 16%. But this infographic says 1 Liter of Diesel produces 5 units (kWh) with no reference to efficiency.
According to CEB, our diesel power plants only produce 4 units per liter (4 kWh per liter of Diesel)
In the local context, a mid-size EV with up to 100 kW motor capacity may travel about 7.5 kilometers per kWh of energy. This equates to 30 Kilometers per Liter and the CPK, cost per Km is LKR 12 if charged via Diesel (@ Per liter cost LKR 363).
As a general guidance, an ICE car travels 15 kilometers on one liter of fuel. This makes a CPK of LKR 15 (Based on the petrol Liter price of LKR 371). Although the figures do differ the point is correct that the EV s do travel more than double the ICE with the same amount of energy.
EV s are still half the cost of ICE in theory, although the practical scenario is different in Sti Lanka owing mainly to the cost of electricity.
ලංකාව කළ යුතු විදුලි රථ වලට කලින් අපේ බංකොලොත් public transport ක්‍රමවේද සම්පූර්ණයෙන් වෙනස් කිරීම සහ micromobility සඳහා අවශ්‍ය යටිතල පහසුකම් හැදීම. එමෙන්ම 80% Renewable මගින් රට බලගැන්වීම. ඉන්පසු අපට සිතිය හැකියි EV සංක්‍රාන්තිය පිළිබඳව.
Here are our views on the National Transport Policy and the EV Transition.