Bring in electric cars and hybrids, leapfrog the West

Twelve years is a long time. Since 96 when GM introduced an electric car that failed in the market despite a dedicated fan following, much water has flowed under the bridge.

Environmental pollution is on a steady rise, fuel prices are on a steady climb, oil reserves keep depleting, and governments, carmakers and buyers look for a way out of the trap — The perfect recipe for the advent of alternative fuels. An idea whose time has come.

Since 1996 when GM discontinued their first electric car, the auto street has seen several new technologies coming up, and many look promising. They include hybrid vehicles (which use an electric motor, batteries and a petrol engine,) fuel cell cars which use hydrogen fuel cells, plug-in hybrid cars which are hybrid vehicles but can also be charged from a home power point, and pure electric cars and even air-powered cars.

Toyota was the first to get off the mark, make a quick dash and leave rivals trailing far behind. Apart from being a commercial success, the Prius also proved to the world the commercial and technological viability of the green car. Soon, others like the Ford Escape hybrid followed. However, since fuel prices stayed relatively low for a long time, necessity, that woman who fosters invention never entered the picture.

It is only in the last one year of zooming fuel prices that we have started hearing about alternative fuel vehicles in any serious manner in India. Sure, we have had the Reva electric car for several years now. But it has an extremely limited running range, and safety standards are so bad that when UK’s Top Gear magazine ran it into a table, the car came off worse than the table.

In India, thanks to a web of extortionist duties, multiple taxes and the mai-baap sarkar’s moral obligation o provide cheap cooking fuel to the masses, auto fuel prices are never going to come down. Even if they do, it will be only for a limited period, and the climb will resume. The country has now woken up to the truth that whichever party runs the government, perpetually rising fuel prices will be a fact of life. The way out, is clearly, alternative fuels. Things have now started moving on this front, though slowly.

Alternative fuels are politically beneficial too. The American economy is too tightly tied up with the oil situation in the Middle East. For them, breaking the stranglehold of multiple car families, and the cost of changing the vast existing infrastructure is a very tough job. Not so for us – we can leapfrog the ageing technologies and move to a new era directly. If it does not happen, it is nothing but a lack of vision from our government and car manufacturers.

Fuel prices are a major cause of price rise in India. When diesel prices go up, prices of every commodity transported by trucks go up. And since the government does not allow oil companies to sell fuel at a price profitable to them, by selling the fuel below cost, they have pushed themselves deeper and deeper into losses, to the point of becoming bankrupt. Oil companies are now out with the begging bowl before the government, which, however, is more interested in making cooking fuel affordable for masses, and in  consequence, makes oil companies and car users pay for it. A world of alternative energy can change all this.

The most important criterion for the average customer in India is fuel efficiency. An electric car’s cost to run a kiometer is one-fourth of a petrol car. So, if there is a practical electric car that that can run, say, 200 kilometers a day for an occasional Thiruvananthapuram-Kochi trip, we Indians would buy it in lakhs.

There is some hope on the horizon, finally. Our own Tata Motors recently announced an Indica that runs on batteries in Norway. It is to be launched in 2009 there, and Tata says it will find its way to India an year later. It promises decent power as well as a range of 200 km. If Tata manages to get some concessions from the government for this environment-friendly as well as pocket-friendly car, it would be a boon to the average car buyer in India. Our growing car market is adding to pollution every day just like China.

Who else is trying to grab this market? Mistubishi is seriously considering an electric car for India, but it might take 3-4 years to come. A Nano electric car would follow within two years of the first Nano launch. Mahindra has already launched a mild-hybrid which can save a little bit of fuel, but they are seriously working towards a proper hybrid car. There is a small Chennai company called Bavina planning a little electric car, as well as Oreva Super from the clock-maker company Ajanta.

Our governments understand the potential. However, this is India, and here, things move slower than a Model T.

A breakthrough in popular alternative energy vehicles – be they electric, hybrid, or air-powered – will see the Indian car market exploding and might change the way the entire world looks at such cars. India and China, with their huge markets, can change the world for good.

And let us not forget mass transport. Our cities are thick with smog and replacing the badly maintained diesel buses with subsidized electric versions will not just reduce pollution, but also convince the general public about the viability of electric vehicles as a reliable means of transport.

McKinsey and Company recently said that in two decades, China could create a world-leading industry and a domestic market worth up to 1.5 trillion yuan ($219.4 billion), even if only 30 % drivers get electric cars. India’s case is similar too, we can see. The US has correctly recognised that its auto industry is the backbone of the American manufacturing economy. In India too, an auto industry that can usher in the future with cheaper, eco-friendly technologies can become the backbone of our newly-urbanising country, and support the economy as well. For alternative fuels, the time has clearly come.