‘Author’ Chetan Bhagat is now apparently ready to quit writing and move to something more up his alley. Or so, he would make you believe. Here’s what he tweeted.

Turning gears. Moving from writing to setting up an electric car project. Always a mechanical engineer :) #TimeToGetSmarter — Chetan Bhagat (@chetan_bhagat) 15 March 2017

While a lot of things have been said about his books, based on his tweet here’s the problem, rather problems, with his electric car project.

Problem 1: Turning Gears

Agreed, the gears do ‘turn’ around inside the gearbox, but all we do is ‘shift gears’ from one to the other. Electric cars on the other hand don't really need gears.

Problem 2: From writing to setting an electric car project

I’ll let twitter take this one.

@chetan_bhagat just don't make "Half Car" ðŸ˜‚ — Rajni Patil (@indian_patil) 15 March 2017

@chetan_bhagat @chetan_bhagat thank you so much. Half girlfriend was worst book I have ever read. Thank you so much — UMesh KArne (@UMesh_KArne09) 15 March 2017

@chetan_bhagat Oh No! In which movies will #ArjunKapoor act now? ðŸ˜Ÿ — Shivani Ahuja (@shivi_ahuja) 15 March 2017

@chetan_bhagat 3 mistakes of your life 1: writing books 2: making twitter account to get trolled 3: now this car bullshit .... ðŸ˜‚ — kathy Sidz (@urhighnex) 15 March 2017

@chetan_bhagat plzz don't! ðŸ™? tearing the books was easy, how would I destroy your car ðŸ˜“ — Naman (@naumi_saxena) 15 March 2017

Problem 3: Always a mechanical engineer

A petrol/diesel engine produces torque in a narrow band. It increases gradually and then tapers off after peaking at a certain engine speed, depending on engine characteristics like stroke, compression ratio and the like. A set of gears are utilised to keep the engine spinning in the power band (that’s the rev range where it makes most of the usable torque and power) to make the most efficient use of fuel. Mr Bhagat as an engineer should have known this.

Mahindra

Electric motors, on the other hand, make nearly 100% of the torque at very low speeds. The fall off in torque is gradual while the power increases as motor speed increases. This is important for cruising once the vehicle picks up speed. (With me Mr Bhagat?) Good.

In the Mahindra E2O for example, 91 Nm of torque is produced at 2000 rpm while max power is produced at 3500 rpm. A direct drive with a tall ratio of 10.83:1 is used to handle all that torque. A Maruti Alto, on the other hand, makes 69 Nm of torque at 3,500 rpm and uses a 5-speed gearbox. The electric motor produces enough torque past the peak torque revs that it can carry on cruising without a change in gear ratio. Now that’s not to say that electric cars can’t use multiple gears, it’s just that they don’t really need them. And making a gearbox to deal with comparatively higher torque is quite a challenge too.

Wonder what Elon Musk has to say about this

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