Business Original explainer
No petrol, no gears, no exhaust. How EVs work, how far they go, and whether charging is really a problem.
An electric car has no petrol tank, no exhaust pipe, and no gearbox. Press the accelerator and it moves, silently, with instant force. There is no engine roar because there is no engine — there is a battery and a motor. That simplicity is the whole idea. An electric vehicle, or EV, replaces hundreds of moving parts with a handful, and replaces petrol with electricity. It sounds like a small change. It changes almost everything about how a car works, what it costs to run, and how you plan a journey.
The heart of an EV is its battery. Almost all modern EVs use lithium-ion batteries, the same chemistry as in your phone, scaled up enormously. The battery's size is measured in kilowatt-hours, written as kWh. Think of kWh as the size of the fuel tank: a bigger number means more energy stored, which usually means more range and a higher price. A small electric scooter might have a battery of 2 to 3 kWh. An electric car might have 30 to 80 kWh. The battery is also the most expensive part of the vehicle, often a third or more of its price, which is why electric cars cost more to buy than similar petrol cars.
A petrol engine burns fuel to push pistons, which turn a crankshaft, which turns the wheels through a gearbox. An electric motor does something far simpler: it spins when electricity flows through it. That is why an EV accelerates instantly — full pulling power is available the moment you press the pedal, with no gears to shift through. It is also why EVs are quiet and smooth. There are very few moving parts to wear out, which means less maintenance: no oil changes, no clutch, no exhaust system to rust.
EVs also recover energy. When you lift your foot off the accelerator, the motor runs in reverse and acts as a generator, feeding a little charge back into the battery and slowing the car down. This is called regenerative braking. In stop-and-go city traffic, it can add a noticeable amount of range. It also means the brake pads last much longer, because the motor does much of the slowing down.
Charging is where most people's questions begin. There are two kinds. Slow charging uses an ordinary AC supply — a home wall socket or a home charger — and takes several hours to fill a car battery. It is cheap and easy, and for most owners it is how the car is charged: plug in at night, wake up to a full battery. Fast charging uses a DC fast charger at a public station, which can add a large chunk of range in under an hour. Fast chargers are more expensive to use, and they are still far fewer in number than petrol pumps, but the network is growing.
How far can an EV go on a charge? The honest answer is: it depends. Range depends on the size of the battery, the speed you drive, the weather, and how much you use the air conditioning. Highway driving at high speed drains a battery faster than city driving, which is the opposite of a petrol car. Manufacturers quote a range figure, but real-world range is usually lower, especially with the AC on in an Indian summer. The practical rule is simple: buy the range you actually need for your daily driving, with some margin, and do not pay for range you will never use.
An EV costs more to buy and less to run. Electricity per kilometre is much cheaper than petrol, and maintenance is lower. Whether that saving covers the higher purchase price depends on how much you drive: the more kilometres you do, the faster an EV pays for itself. The government has pushed the shift with subsidies. The FAME-II scheme, which ran from April 2019 to March 2024 with an outlay of 11,500 crore rupees, supported the sale of about 16.72 lakh electric vehicles and helped set up more than 9,500 public charging stations. Its successor, the PM E-DRIVE scheme, launched in September 2024 with an outlay of 10,900 crore rupees, aims to support about 28.3 lakh more vehicles and to add 72,000 chargers by March 2028. Electric vehicles also attract only 5 per cent GST, against 28 per cent for most petrol cars.
The challenges are real. Charging infrastructure is still thin outside big cities, and a long highway trip needs planning. Batteries degrade slowly over years, though most makers now warranty them for long periods. And the electricity that charges an EV is only as clean as the grid that supplies it — in India, much of that power still comes from coal, which blunts the climate benefit until the grid gets greener. India has pledged to reach net zero emissions by 2070, and cleaning up transport is part of that promise.
For a city commuter with home charging, an electric two-wheeler or car is already a sensible choice: low running costs, little maintenance, and a quiet ride. For a family that often drives long distances, or has no place to charge at home, a petrol or hybrid car is still the easier option today. The honest answer is that EVs are not for everyone yet — but the direction is one-way. Batteries get cheaper every year, chargers spread a little further every month, and the gap between the promise and the reality keeps shrinking. The question is no longer whether electric vehicles will take over Indian roads. It is how fast.
This explainer was written by The Daily Short's desk from the sources listed above. It is general information, not professional advice. Spot an error? See our Corrections Policy or tell us via the Contact page and we will correct it. Follow our official Instagram @thedaily.short.