Indian Car Makers Want Govt. To Promote Alternate Fuel And CNG Along With Electric Vehicles

In a bid to reduce its dependence on fuel imports, India has been embracing electric vehicles across all the possible use-case scenarios. Automobile industry body SIAM now proposes that the government also takes alternate fuels into consideration. For this, SIAM has suggested that petrol-powered two-wheelers and passenger vehicles should be made compatible with 10 percent ethanol (E10) and 3 percent methanol (M3) blends by 2025.

The proposal comes as a part of a white paper on 'Alternative Fuels for Vehicles' released by SIAM recently. In the paper, SIAM also acknowledged that the industry can work towards making specific vehicles compatible with 20 percent ethanol (E20)-blended gasoline by 2030. This, of course, based on the availability of the fuels.

The body considers this as a complementary effort to establish energy security in the country, still believing that electrification of India¡¯s transportation should be the primary way forward to achieve this. It does, however, expects the government to push these alternate fuels through new-formed infrastructure.

Santa Elisa ethanol distillery in Sertaozinho, Brazil (Image: Reuters))

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SIAM also sees CNG helping with this. It estimates that CNG penetration can be increased substantially following an increase in CNG infrastructure. A total of 13 million CNG four-wheelers can be seen running on Indian roads is the CNG stations across the country are increased to a total of 10,000.

The target

SIAM ultimately sees vehicles powered by alternate fuels like ethanol and CNG being run alongside electric vehicles a decade from now. By 2030, it sees the gasoline-powered vehicles being compatible with E20 and diesel vehicles with B7 (7 percent biodiesel), a possible target that SIAM says will be achieved by 2020.

The industry body has even suggested a roadmap for this. By 2020, SIAM says that E10 complaint two-wheelers and four-wheelers would be continued to be made available across India. By 2025, that is the second phase, all new vehicles will be E10 material-compliant and will come with enhanced fuel efficiency.

During the third phase, that is by 2030, SIAM proposes production of two- and four-wheelers specifically compliant to E20, also compatible for 3% Methanol (M3) across India.

A refueling station supplying gasoline blended with 10% ethanol. (Image: Reuters)

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Ultimately, vehicles on the Indian roads post 2030 will be all-electric, hybrid, CNG or E20 compliant, thus helping the government minimise dependence on fuel imports.

The plan makes sense, as there are many countries where transportation is majorly powered by alternate fuels like ethanol and methanol. Brazil, for instance, uses 85 to 100% of ethanol and the vehicles operated in the country are specifically manufactured for the same. Shifting to such a fuel would not even require a massive infrastructural change, as in the case of electric vehicles and most of the entities involved in running a car will remain pretty much the same.

Still, we cannot say that this is a unique idea that has not been thought of before. India has had a limited success with such vehicle in the past and whether they will gain momentum with government¡¯s backing, is something only time will tell.