Toyota pitches for ethanol hybrids as India looks at electric future
Such a fuel could provide protection from geopolitical uncertainties at a time when China is imposing obstacles to the development of electric vehicles, according to a senior executive at the company.
Vikram Gulati, Toyota’s country president and vice president of corporate affairs and governance, said offering tax breaks and emission norm benefits to flex-fuel vehicles could help push manufacturers to popularize such vehicles. Mint in an interview.
He noted that ethanol-powered hybrid flex-fuel vehicles are the cleanest of all technologies when considering the entire lifecycle of the vehicle rather than just tailpipe emissions.
“We are the most competitive country in the world in internal combustion engines. This helps sustain internal combustion engine technology. It is not a bad technology,” he said, adding that a clean-fuel internal combustion engine is as clean as any technology.
“For example, you can use an internal combustion engine with hydrogen. That’s the cleanest, you can use it with pure ethanol. It’s among the cleanest,” Gulati said.
Flex fuel vehicles can run on any blend of ethanol and gasoline, including 100% gasoline. Currently, India is blending 20% ethanol with petroleum as part of efforts to reduce import dependence on crude oil.
Gulati said it could hurt the efficiency of a vehicle running on 100% ethanol, so the company is pushing for such vehicles to be combined with plug-in hybrid or powerful hybrid technologies that would help provide even greater maximum range than electric vehicles.
Toyota’s bid for such vehicles, backed by India’s sugar lobby with an interest in the ethanol business, comes at a time when the country’s leading automakers are pushing the government to prioritize EVs as a future bet for the transition to clean fuel. Moreover, these comments come at a time when the country is in the midst of finalizing the third iteration of corporate average fuel efficiency (CAFE-III) norms.
Seeking greater benefits from electric vehicle technology, the country’s leading auto lobby, Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM), has submitted a proposal to the government to provide maximum leeway in calculating emission norms for electric vehicles.
In the draft emission norms published on September 25, the government said that an EV will be counted as three cars and a hybrid car with flexible fuel technology will be counted as 2.5 cars during calculations.
But Toyota says that from a full lifecycle perspective, which includes a technology’s emissions from raw materials to end-of-life, flex-fuel vehicles running on ethanol will deliver maximum benefits.
In addition, Gulati emphasized that a future without internal combustion technologies is an unsustainable solution for the country’s economy and the automotive industry, and therefore ways must be found to help make the technology sustainable in the long term by combining it with ethanol and flexible fuel technologies.
“ ₹20 trillion turnover of Indian automotive industry. Most of it (99% or 98%) comes from internal combustion engine technologies. “We showed that 15 percent of tax revenues come from automotive,” Gulati said.
“ ₹88,000 crore goes to the states as road tax. Now imagine a future where these things will disappear. So this is an unsustainable outcome. It would be better if you approach this towards sustainable energy. That’s why ethanol makes so much sense,” Gulati said.
Toyota’s call to prioritize ethanol and flexible fuel vehicles has been welcomed by the sugar industry; Representatives of this industry have repeatedly emphasized that the capacity to produce ethanol in the country is much higher than what the country currently uses.
According to data presented by the Indian Sugar Mills Association (ISMA), the country currently has annual capacity. 19 billion liters of ethanol but only 10.5 billion liters It is marked for purchase by oil marketing companies for blending with fuel oil.
“Now the capacities have arrived, but today we are stuck at 20% as we have so much capacity and consumption. We need to work to increase consumption,” ISMA director general Deepak Ballani told reporters at an industry event on Thursday. he said.
Renewed push
Sugar industry top executives believe that given the ethanol industry’s domestic advantage, it should encourage policymakers to prioritize how to increase consumption.
“Flex fuel is perhaps the most important ecosystem. I believe it is perhaps the most important mobility solution in terms of reducing carbon emissions,” Ballani said.
Toyota and the sugar industry’s new push into ethanol and flexible fuel vehicles comes months after turmoil emerged over blending ethanol into oil; Many consumers complained that ethanol hurt their vehicle’s mileage.
While Toyota has been pushing for domestic ethanol-powered hybrid technology, automakers such as Tata Motors and Mahindra and Mahindra have called for electric vehicles to be prioritized for the transition to clean fuel in India.
The writer is in Sabitgarh upon the invitation of the Indian Sugar Mills Association.
