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Beth Handman | 2014

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Effects of Car Pollutants on the Environment

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Effects of Car Pollutants on the Environment

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SCIENCING | 2018

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Car pollutants cause immediate and long-term effects on the environment. Car exhausts emit a wide range of gases and solid matter, causing global warming, acid rain, and harming the environment and human health. Engine noise and fuel spills also cause pollution. Cars, trucks and other forms of transportation are the single largest contributor to air pollution in the United States, but car owners can reduce their vehicle's effects on the environment.

Car pollution is one of the major causes of global warming. Cars and trucks emit carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, which contribute one-fifth of the United States' total global warming pollution. Greenhouse gases trap heat in the atmosphere, which causes worldwide temperatures to rise. Without greenhouse gases, the Earth would be covered in ice, but burning excessive amounts of fossil fuels, such as gasoline and diesel, has caused an increase of 0.6 degrees Celsius, or 1 degree F, in global temperatures since pre-industrial times, and this will continue to rise over the coming decades. Warmer global temperatures affect farming, wildlife, sea levels and natural landscapes.

The effects of car pollution are widespread, affecting air, soil and water quality. Nitrous oxide contributes to the depletion of the ozone layer, which shields the Earth from harmful ultraviolet radiation from the sun. Sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide mix with rainwater to create acid rain, which damages crops, forests and other vegetation and buildings. Oil and fuel spills from cars and trucks seep into the soil near highways, and discarded fuel and particulates from vehicle emissions contaminate lakes, rivers and wetlands.

Particulate matter, hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide and other car pollutants harm human health. Diesel engines emit high levels of particulate matter, which is airborne particles of soot and metal. These cause skin and eye irritation and allergies, and very fine particles lodge deep in lungs, where they cause respiratory problems. Hydrocarbons react with nitrogen dioxide and sunlight and form ozone, which is beneficial in the upper atmosphere but harmful at ground level. Ozone inflames lungs, causing chest pains and coughing and making it difficult to breathe. Carbon monoxide, another exhaust gas, is particularly dangerous to infants and people suffering from heart disease because it interferes with the blood's ability to transport oxygen. Other car pollutants that harm human health include sulfur dioxide, benzene and formaldehyde. Noise from cars is also harmful, damaging hearing and causing psychological ill-health.

There are several ways that car and truck owners can reduce the effects of car pollutants on the environment. Old and poorly maintained vehicles cause most pollution from cars, but electric, hybrid and other clean, fuel-efficient cars have a reduced impact. When buying a new car, check the fuel economy and environment label. High ratings mean low pollution levels. Maximize fuel economy by removing all unneeded items, such as roof racks, and driving steadily, rather than accelerating quickly and braking hard. Keep your vehicle well-maintained, with regular tune-ups and tire checks, and leave the car at home whenever you can. Walk, bike or use public transportation when possible.

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Effects of Car Pollutants on the Environment

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There are many ways vehicle emissions affect human health and the environment, including ozone and sulfur dioxide emissions.

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Kiddle Encyclopedia

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An electric vehicle is a vehicle that uses electricity to move. Its wheels are driven by electric motors.

Electric vehicles were one of the first kinds that did not use horse or human power. Electric trains and cars were built in the 1830's, and in the early 1900's there were more electric cars than gasoline-powered cars. But cars powered by gasoline or diesel fuel become the most common kind of car for most of the last 100 years.

Electric vehicles have long been used in some special cases, such as forklifts used inside a building, golf carts, trolley bus or certain vehicles used around airplanes at an airport. Early in the 21st century people are using more electric and hybrid vehicles again as a way to reduce pollution and use less gasoline.

It is unclear who the first inventor was, but Ányos Jedlik of Hungary built a small model of a working electric car in 1828. In the 1830's Robert Anderson of Scotland, Professor Stratingh of Holland and Thomas Davenport, a blacksmith from Vermont all built electric vehicles. Davenport is said to be the inventor of the DC electric motor. In 1865, Gaston Plante of France made a better battery. In 1886, the inventor Frank Sprague of Connecticut made important changes to the electric motor.

Great Britain and France were early leaders in making better electric cars. Interest in the electric car in the United States grew after 1891 when A. L. Ryker built a three-wheeled electric car, and William Morrison built a six-passenger wagon.

The years 1899 and 1900 were the best years for electric cars in America, as they outsold all other types of cars ( steam, gasoline and diesel). One example was the 1902 Phaeton built by the Woods Motor Vehicle Company of Chicago, which had a range of 18 miles, a top speed of 14 mph and cost $2,000. (At that time, there were few good roads between towns, so most driving was for short distances). Electric cars could go as far as steam-powered cars and did not take 30 to 40 minutes to get started. Gasoline engines were smelly and noisy.

But then the internal combustion engine (that used gasoline and diesel) were greatly improved, and cars that used those engines could go much farther and faster than other cars.

Some people would make electric cars in their garages by taking out the engine and putting in an electric motor and batteries, but for a long time, no big car company made an electric car. Only in the late 1990's did big car companies start making electric cars again. The most famous was the GM's EV-1. Now interest in alternative fuel vehicles is growing.

Kinds of electric vehicles

Pure electric cars

These types of cars do not have any kind of internal combustion engine, but are driven entirely using electric motors, which gets its power in different ways other than an engine.

A fuel cell makes electricity from hydrogen. Hydrogen is very common, but hard to store. It can be made from water, but is usually made from natural gas. These cars are very rare, because there are not many places where one can fill up with hydrogen, and so not many are made. One of the few companies who makes fuel cell cars is Toyota, which has the Mirai.

A solar cell stores energy from the sun as electricity to make the car go. But the sunlight that lands on a solar car is not enough to make a full sized car move very fast, and cannot work at night unless it stores energy somewhere. There is a competition every year to see who can make a car that goes the farthest on only solar power.

A battery-electric vehicle (BEV) stores electrical energy in a big battery inside the car. The batteries get their energy from an electric supply outside the car, usually a electrical outlet like those in a house. It is the most common kind of electric car seen today. Many governments around the world are encouraging public places to install charging stations, which have a plug that can charge most types of plug-in cars. Companies that make BEVs include Nissan, which has the Leaf, and Mitsubishi Motors, which makes the i-miEV. An American company called Tesla is famous for making BEVs that charge very quickly, such as the Roadster (a sports car) and more recently the Model S.

Hybrid cars

A hybrid is a combination of two things. In this case, it is an electric motor, and another type of power, such as an engine. Because of this, hybrid vehicles are not true electric vehicles.

A hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) has both an internal combustion engine and an electric motor which drives the wheels. Usually, the electric motor is used when moving at low speeds and power from the internal combustion engine is used as the car goes faster. The engine get its power from gasoline, diesel, or any other kind of fuel, and can generate electricity which is stored in batteries to be used later with the electric motor. The battery is much smaller than that of a pure electric vehicle and even though the vehicle can go without starting the gas engine, it cannot go very far before the battery runs out of energy and the gas engine has to be started. The Toyota Prius is the best-selling HEV of all time, but many other companies around the world like Honda (with the Clarity), BMW (with the i3), and Ford (with the Focus) also make hybrid cars, some of which, such as the Honda Civic and Toyota Camry, come in both gas-only and hybrid versions. The hybrid version is usually more expensive because it has more parts.

A plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) is like an ordinary hybrid electric vehicle in that it has both an internal combustion engine and an electric motor. The difference is that a PHEV has a bigger battery that can be charged using a plug from an outlet, just like a battery-electric vehicle. This allows the car to go farther on electric power alone than a HEV before the gas engine has to be used. However, the battery is still quite small, meaning a PHEV most often does not go as far as a BEV on electric power alone. The Chevrolet Volt from General Motors and the Sonata by Hyundai are just two examples of plug-in hybrids, and Toyota also makes a plug-in version of its Prius, as does Honda with its Clarity.

A human electric hybrid vehicle (HEHV), in its simplest form, is a battery and motor put on a bicycle. The Twike is a covered vehicle that can hold two people. It can be pedaled, run from the battery, or both.

Other vehicles

There are many other types of electric vehicles. A trolley bus (also called a trackless trolley) uses overhead electric lines to power it. Many trains use a railway electrification system to supply power. A few high-speed rail lines use powered magnets in the track to move the train, in a system called ' mag-lev' (magnetic levitation). There are electric bicycles and motorcycles and some tricycles (trikes) like the Corbin Motors Sparrow, which was also seen in the Austin Powers movie Goldmember.

Most freight trains are diesel-electric. The locomotive has a diesel engine which provides electricity, and an electric motor which makes the wheels turn. In recent years, however, there are buses and trains that store their power in a battery or use some other source like fuel cells. These kinds of vehicles do not need wires.

Advantages and disadvantages
Advantages:
These vehicles use an electric motor, so they are very quiet, no smell and no pollution from exhaust gases that is why UK is considering stop sale of diesel, petrol and hybrid vehicles by 2035. They can even be used indoors, in tunnels and mines. Oil for gasoline and diesel is a limited resource - it will not last forever and is becoming more expensive. If the electricity for a battery-electric vehicle comes from a renewable energy source, like a windmill, solar cells, geothermal or hydroelectric, then it will not produce as many global warming gases.
Disadvantages:
Batteries do not store a lot of energy, and they are large and heavy, so the vehicles usually cannot go very far. It takes a long time to recharge a battery, sometimes many hours. Good batteries can be very expensive, and all batteries need to be replaced after a while. Most electricity in the United States comes from coal or natural gas, so an electric vehicle that is powered by electricity from one of these plants will still add to global warming gases.

Modern Vehicles

More electric cars are being made every year. Here are a few:

Tesla Roadster (a sports car, only sold for a short time, then replaced by the Model S)

Tesla Model S

Ford Focus Electric

Images for kids

In Spanish: Vehículo eléctrico para niños

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NASA Climate Kids

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Air pollution happens when solid and liquid particles-called aerosols -and certain gases end up in our air. These particles and gases can be bad for the planet and for our health, so keeping track of them is important.

Where do aerosols come from?

Any particle that gets picked up into the air or is formed from chemical reactions in the air can be an aerosol. Many aerosols enter the atmosphere when we burn fossil fuels-such as coal and petroleum-and wood. These particles can come from many sources, including car exhaust, factories and even wildfires. Some of the particles and gases come directly from these sources, but others form through chemical reactions in the air.

Aerosols can come from other places, too, such as ash from an erupting volcano. Dust, pollen from plants and mold spores are also examples of aerosols.

What else causes air pollution?

Certain gases in the atmosphere can cause air pollution. For example, in cities, a gas called ozone is a major cause of air pollution. Ozone is also a greenhouse gas that can be both good and bad for our environment. It all depends where it is in Earth's atmosphere.

Ozone high up in our atmosphere is a good thing. It helps block harmful energy from the Sun, called radiation. But, when ozone is closer to the ground, it can be really bad for our health. Ground level ozone is created when sunlight reacts with certain chemicals that come from sources of burning fossil fuels, such as factories or car exhaust.

When particles in the air combine with ozone, they create smog. Smog is a type of air pollution that looks like smoky fog and makes it difficult to see.

How does air pollution affect Earth's climate?

Aerosols can impact how the Sun's light hits Earth. For example, some aerosols reflect sunlight while others absorb sunlight. It depends on the color of the particle.

Dark surfaces-whether it's a black t-shirt or a dark particle in the atmosphere-absorb the Sun's heat. Lighter-colored surfaces reflect heat from the Sun.

A white t-shirt reflects the Sun on a hot day, making you feel cooler. In the same way, light-colored particles that reflect the Sun's light and heat away from Earth can make the global temperature cooler. Dark-colored particles that absorb the Sun's light can make the global temperature warmer.

How does air pollution affect our health?

Breathing in polluted air can be very bad for our health. Long-term exposure to air pollution has been associated with diseases of the heart and lungs, cancers and other health problems. That's why it's important for us to monitor air pollution.

How is NASA monitoring air pollution?

NASA uses satellites orbiting Earth to keep an eye on air pollution. In fact, air quality forecasters use information about aerosols from NASA's Aqua, Terra and Suomi-NPP satellites.

NASA also is developing a new instrument called the Multi-Angle Imager for Aerosols, or MAIA, to fly aboard a future spacecraft mission. MAIA will help scientists understand the size, makeup and quantity of aerosols in our air. Eventually, scientists will be able to compare this information with health records. This can help us better understand the relationship between aerosol pollution and human health.

Related NASA Missions

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Air pollution is caused by solid or liquid particles and certain gases suspended in the air. These particles and gases can come from car and truck exhaust, factories, dust, pollen, mold spores, volcanoes and wildfires.

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TIME For Kids | 2020

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How do you travel around your town or city? Some people walk or ride a bike. Others take buses and trains. But most people get around by car. This might be convenient, but having too many cars on the road…

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Driving down emissions: air quality & the motor industry

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Driving down emissions: air quality & the motor industry

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SMMT | 2016

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Driving down emissions: air quality & the motor industry

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How China is driving the future of electric cars

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How China is driving the future of electric cars

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PBS News Hour | 2019

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That's a reduction of less than 1 percent. But with public transportation increasingly going green, that figure is set to grow.

Top-selling electric vehicle manufacturer BYD has turned the southern metropolis of Shenzhen into the world's first city to rely only on electric buses. Shenzhen alone now operates more electric buses than every city in the world outside of China combined.

BYD is also greening the city's taxi fleet. Almost all of the city's 22,000 cabs are electric. But some drivers wish they weren't forced to make the switch.

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How China is driving the future of electric cars

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In China, the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases, putting more electric vehicles on the road is critical. Determined to become a world leader in the market, that nation has imposed a requirement that's compelling international manufacturers to go more green. Special correspondent Katrina Yu reports as part of "China: Power and Prosperity," with support from the Pulitzer Center.

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Demand for electric cars has grown slowly. But the tsunami is coming

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Demand for electric cars has grown slowly. But the tsunami is coming

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CNN Business

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Can India chart a low-carbon future? The world might depend on it.

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Can India chart a low-carbon future? The world might depend on it.

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Washington Post | 2020

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RANCHI, India - Dusk was falling as Sadanand Jha drove his electric three-wheeler through the streets of this north Indian city, passing vegetable markets, tea stalls and tiny storefronts on a cool evening before the pandemic.

He wove in and out of rush-hour traffic, darting to the curb to pick up passengers - some of them cranky and all of them in a hurry. The night air was alive with the sound of thudding engines, but Jha's battery-powered royal blue rickshaw zipped along with only a whirring noise.

Until recently, Jha, 35, had been one of the vendors he now passed by in a blur. But then he spotted a new type of three-wheeler on the streets of Ranchi, the capital of one of India's poorest states. The inexpensive, brightly colored vehicles spelled opportunity, a chance to earn more money and be his own boss.

With a bank loan and small down payment, Jha joined the ranks of an unlikely army of new-energy entrepreneurs. About 1.75 million electric rickshaws ply India's roads - more than the total number of electric cars sold in the United States. The scrappy, slightly anarchic industry is a homegrown success story in India's fight against climate change and debilitating air pollution.

It's a small leap forward in a much longer race. As the world confronts a changing climate, India is a crucial unknown, and its decisions could either doom efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions - or jump-start them.

Daily emissions worldwide decreased by as much as 17 percent during the coronavirus pandemic, scientists say, as economies staggered under the impact of lockdowns and stay-at-home orders. But experts believe that such effects on emissions are likely to be short-lived.

India's lockdown - one of the world's most stringent - crushed economic activity in this nation of more than 1.3 billion people. By one estimate, India's carbon dioxide emissions fell by 30 percent in April compared with the same month in 2019, according to analysts at the website Carbon Brief. Pollution also fell dramatically, bringing blue skies to New Delhi, notorious for its bad air.

The shutdown is now easing. While the restrictions carried a steep human and economic cost, they also suggested the possibility of a different future. India is expected to become the most- populous country in the world by 2027. It is also a nation that intends to make major leaps in its development in the coming decades. Achieving such leaps will require considerably more energy than India currently consumes.

How India generates that energy will have global repercussions. India's challenge is to become a more prosperous country "without putting out enough carbon to break the world," said Ajay Mathur, a former Indian climate negotiator and a member of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's council on climate change.

India is now the planet's third-largest emitter of carbon dioxide, although it is still well behind China, the world's largest emitter, and the United States. Measured per person, however, India's emissions are ranked 140th in the world (the United States is 14th and China is 48th).

But India's emissions are set to rise in the years ahead as economic growth propels demand for energy. The latest estimates indicate that emissions in India grew 1.8 percent in 2019. That's a much slower pace than in 2018, although much of the deceleration was due to a sluggish economy. Coal will also remain a major part of India's power sector in the coming decades, and the country is still building coal-fired plants.

India will be "a critically important part of the emerging trend in global emissions," said Andrew Light, a senior climate negotiator for the United States under the Obama administration. Not only is India one of the world's largest and fastest-growing emitters, he said, but it also faces acute vulnerabilities from a changing climate, including rising sea levels, melting glaciers and extreme weather events.

So far, no country has managed to lift itself out of poverty without a concomitant surge in emissions. China's spectacular economic rise, for example, led to an explosive jump in its carbon emissions.

"When people think of India, they have the shadow of China in their minds," said Navroz Dubash, an expert on climate change at the Center for Policy Research in New Delhi. "People think, 'Oh my goodness, India might do the same thing,' " he said. "If you think [India] will be a China repeat, it's a fearful story. But it's actually a huge opportunity."

Indeed, India is the only major country in the world where actions to combat emissions are compatible with the goal of limiting global warming to an average of 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), according to Climate Action Tracker, a joint initiative by two climate research organizations based in Germany. By contrast, the group says that China's actions are "highly insufficient" with respect to that goal, while those of the United States are worse - it deems them "critically insufficient."

In the coming years, India will need policies that not only lower pollution and carbon emissions but also create jobs for its growing workforce. In that regard, the spread of electric rickshaws is instructive. While India has struggled to increase the number of electric cars on the roads, battery-powered rickshaws have flourished with little help from the government and without any kind of charging infrastructure.

Unlike in the United States, where the transportation sector is the largest single contributor to emissions, in India the sector accounts for about a tenth of the total.

But its contribution is growing quickly as vehicle ownership expands. A government target of having 30 percent of vehicles running on battery power by 2030 appears out of reach, because such vehicles currently account for only a small fraction of new sales.

Meanwhile, Indian officials say they will meet two major pledges under the Paris agreement on climate change ahead of schedule. India has promised to ensure that 40 percent of its electricity-generation capacity comes from non-fossil fuel sources by 2030. It will also reduce its "emissions intensity" - a ratio of total emissions to gross domestic product - by at least one-third compared with 2005 levels. India has increased its solar-energy capacity more than twelvefold since 2014 and launched initiatives to save electricity.

That has put the two Paris pledges within reach. "We are now at the stage where much, much to our surprise, we may reach both of these goals well before 2030, possibly in early 2020s," Mathur said. "The question can also be asked: Should India's targets have been more? But in 2015, nobody would have committed to that."

In 2017, President Trump announced that he was withdrawing the United States from the Paris climate agreement, a move that nullified the country's commitment to cut emissions. China, meanwhile, made two major pledges under the accord, vowing to reduce its emissions intensity by at least 60 percent by 2030 and to generate 20 percent of its power from non-fossil fuels.

Some experts say that India can and must do more. "We should increase our ambition," said Chandra Bhushan, a noted environmentalist. If the economics are right, he adds, India even has a chance to jump ahead to low-carbon, energy-efficient technologies.

"The rich would like to remain as they are," Bhushan said. "I very strongly believe the poor will leapfrog the technology because it is affordable."

'No documentation required'

Dahru Mahli grew up in a village with no road in Lohardaga, a district in north India that is one of the country's least developed areas. His father was a farm laborer. As a teenager, he migrated to Ranchi, a city about 50 miles away that is now home to 1 million people. For 21 years, he drove a bicycle rickshaw, pedaling customers around town before falling exhausted into bed each evening. He earned about $2.50 a day.

Then, a couple of years ago, he saw an electric rickshaw zipping past on the city's streets. Mahli decided to rent one to see if what he heard was true: This was a way to make more money. Not only did he increase his take-home pay to about $7 a day but the work was far less strenuous than his old job. A little over a year ago, he took out a bank loan to buy a new electric rickshaw for his eldest son for a little more than $2,000.

Auto rickshaws - also sometimes called tuk-tuks - are a cheap and vital form of passenger transport in India, where car-ownership rates are low and public transportation remains limited. There are more than 3 million fuel-powered auto rickshaws in India, according to the latest available figures. They have three wheels, carry three to six passengers - more if you're willing to squeeze - and run on diesel fuel, gasoline or compressed natural gas.

Smaller vehicles far outnumber cars in India for reasons of affordability. According to government figures, there are about 187 million scooters and motorcycles in the country compared with about 28 million cars and taxis. The government now believes the best prospects for electric vehicle sales are in two-wheelers, three-wheeled rickshaws and buses - not cars.

The rise of electric rickshaws was largely unplanned. At first, the size and speed of the vehicles - the fastest they go is about 20 miles an hour - meant that they escaped regulation under existing motor-vehicle laws. "No permit, no license, no documentation required," recalled Ashish Keshri, an electric rickshaw dealer in Ranchi, the capital of the state of Jharkhand.

That quickly changed as the number of electric rickshaws, or "e-rickshaws" as they are known here, multiplied. In 2017, city officials found that there were at least 1,300 such vehicles and issued them passes to ply certain routes. But their number continued to multiply. They "grew like anything," said Saurabh Verma, Ranchi's former transport manager. There are now about 7,000 e-rickshaws registered with the authorities.

Teslas they are not: Powered by four large lead-acid batteries stored just under the passenger seats, e-rickshaws often have plastic windshields (or none at all). They come in a bewildering array of colors and brands - Indian Buggy, Queen, Terra Motors, Pushpak, Yatri, Etron, Kuku, Saarthi. They're airier and easier to board than their fuel-powered equivalents, although less sturdy.

Ranchi may be the only city in the world where the municipal authorities found themselves grappling with a surfeit of electric vehicles. Such vehicles are "very good" for the environment, said Sanjeev Vijayvergia, the city's deputy mayor. But they are also "undisciplined," he said, which created "a very vast problem for traffic."

The battery-powered rickshaws thronged the city's main thoroughfare, picking up passengers at will and snarling the already considerable congestion on an avenue named after Mohandas Gandhi, India's revered independence leader.

There were other issues, too: While most drivers charged the vehicles' large lead-acid batteries at home, some delivered them to garages that steal electricity, said Verma.

The rapid spread of e-rickshaws raised hopes that India could accelerate a broader shift toward electric vehicles. The government even mulled a move to require all two-wheel and three-wheel vehicles to go fully electric by 2026.

But it stepped away from such hard deadlines as India's economic growth slowed well before the pandemic hit. "It will be a natural process," Nitin Gadkari, the minister for road transport and highways, said in an interview last year. Having a "time limit is not the concept."

'Vacate carbon space'

For years, India viewed global efforts to rein in emissions mainly as a "diplomatic problem" and a "source of pressure" to be resisted, said Dubash, of the Center for Policy Research. After all, developed countries had created the climate crisis, so it was their responsibility to fix it. Before the signing of the Paris climate accord in 2015, India's environment minister repeatedly said that the developed world should " vacate carbon space " because "countries like India are coming."

Such views are changing - and some say the tone is being set at the top. Like Trump, Modi is a right-leaning politician who espouses a strident variety of nationalism. But unlike the American leader, he does not deny that human activity is causing climate change. Modi is a "climate champion," said Light, the former U.S. negotiator. The Indian prime minister is "personally committed in a way that we have not seen before on this particular issue in India."

For the Indian government, the fight against climate change aligns with other objectives, including combating devastating air pollution and promoting energy independence. "We are spending too much of our budget on importing crude oil," said Gadkari, the transport minister. "The principle of self-reliance is also equally important."

In 2018, India installed almost as much new solar generating capacity as the United States did. Speaking at the United Nations in September, Modi said India would more than double its target for installed renewable-energy capacity to 450 gigawatts, although he did not commit to a time frame. "If we get to 450 gigawatts by 2030, it changes India's infrastructure," said Bhushan, the environmental activist. "That will be the right target."

Electric rickshaws also have a role to play in India's battle against emissions - provided they are charged by cleaner forms of energy. The vehicles are "a local solution to a local problem," said Ambuj Sagar, an expert on climate change at the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi. They're going after "a small part of transport emissions but one of the worst niches," because the shorter, last-mile trips they make are likely to be more polluting.

Among the electric rickshaw drivers on the streets of Ranchi, there is very little talk about the environmental impact of their work. In a state where the per-capita income is less than $800 a year, e-rickshaws represented a scarce commodity: a way for people with comparatively little formal education to increase their earning potential.

Until recently, the drivers of the electric vehicles sold vegetables for a living, worked as security guards or pedaled bicycle rickshaws. Jha sold car parts to small vendors for more than a decade and earned about $170 a month.

A friend tipped him off to the opportunity presented by electric rickshaws. Jha started by renting one - and doubled his income. "It's good to be your own boss," he said, as he piloted his battered rickshaw on a loop around downtown Ranchi on a sunny afternoon.

While Jha has frustrations - the vehicle can overheat and spark if overloaded - his biggest complaint has been with the city authorities. To alleviate traffic jams, in September they banned e-rickshaws from Ranchi's main thoroughfare, depriving drivers of a major source of income (they staged a protest, to no avail). Dealers, too, complained bitterly about the impact of the city's decision on their businesses.

A far larger disruption lay ahead. In late March, when India's lockdown began, all commercial transportation was banned on Ranchi's streets. Jha's rickshaw sat unused inside the gate of the small, unfinished building where he lives, its batteries removed to prevent damage. The restrictions on drivers were finally lifted earlier this week, but Jha fears business won't be the same again.

He still hopes for a return to something like normal times. He remembers his daily drive home along narrow and bumpy roads, passing people leaving work and doing last-minute vegetable shopping. As he pulled into his gate, his elder son, 10, would dangle a black extension cord down from the second floor. Jha would plug in a boxy charger connected to two wires under the seat of his rickshaw, then flip a switch. Upstairs, there was a cup of tea and dinner, and the next morning, another day of driving.
An earlier version of this article incorrectly identified the deputy mayor of Ranchi. His name is Sanjeev Vijayvergia, not Vijay Vijayvergiya. Pallavi Pratibha and Utpal Pathak contributed to this report. Videos by Vikramaditya Singh. Video editing by Joyce Lee. Photo editing by Olivier Laurent. Copy editing by Sue Doyle. Design by Victoria Adams Fogg.

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Can India chart a low-carbon future? The world might depend on it.

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RANCHI, India - Dusk was falling as Sadanand Jha drove his electric three-wheeler through the streets of this north Indian city, passing vegetable markets, tea stalls and tiny storefronts on a cool evening before the pandemic. He wove in and out of rush-hour traffic, darting to the curb to pick up passengers - some of them cranky and all of them in a hurry.