Is India Ready for Hybrid Vehicals

I view hybrids as a technical advancement meeting a need that caters to a good value. However technical advancements usually come first. The infra structure and the service support follows later. 

Considering the environmental crisis facing us today, hybrids are definitely required in india. They can make a huge demand if they made available properly. "making them available properly" includes all the inducements to purchase and use them and not just the servicing infrastructure alone.

Yes, India is not only ready but the hybrids are the need of the hour.

SKILL YOU DO'NT FIND TO HANDLE THIS VEHICLE

Dear Makrand, I have made it clear in my first post that I also work on the wiring of Hybrid Electrical Vehicle. Thus I actually don’t need any article about hybrid vehicle and I am completely aware of its functioning, pros and cons. I feel you have a misconception about Reva, Reva is only an electrical vehicle driven by electrical energy. Whereas a hybrid vehicle uses two energy sources to drive the vehicle. Mostly petrol engine and an electric motor. Precisely hybrid vehicle runs using petrol, but can also produce its own power and use it to drive further with the electrical motor, it can also be recharged with external power source. Thus it saves the petrol consumption. Back to topic, because of its features people expect hybrid vehicles are costlier. Of course they are a bit costlier, but the US government is giving many sops and tax savings on hybrid vehicles to create awareness and grow interest among the people. India should also do the same. Just because people are not aware, we cannot sit quiet and let the useful technology go waste. The technology should be used for the benefit of humans and both the people and government should do what ever they can in making the lives of people easy. People may argue with me there are many poor people in India and we are bothered about the rich. But aren’t the poor people affected by the pollution delivered by the vehicles of rich. So if the pollution from the vehicles of rich can be controlled then surely it will also affect the lives of poor and everyone in this country. Companies will also try to reach a normal customer and we can see the drop in price in future like the other vehicles.

Again Sampath.

Like i said in the first post its only about acceptance. Cost is nothing in a market, cost is only a comparable component. People choose Petrol/Diesel cars because they seem to be cheap to buy. 20 years back If you asked me would India have a 2 million cars per year market. I might have given you a cold stare. But look at last year, we sold over 2 million cars. And the market has barely reached its cap. It will grow. 

There are a lot of cool people who wont drive other than a turbo charged super powered cars, there are some who are afraid of the complexities of a hybrid, some who dont like the uncool miser factor associated with them, some who hate them from some odd reason and some who dont think they work. But there is at least 60% population in this nation who will want to save some money daily, spend their earned money in decent comfort and hybrid will help us in doing that. The fact that economy is booming again will bring back all the woes we saw in 2006. Rs. 60/litre petrol is just a year away, Inflation. Its up to us to save some money by increasing our efficiencies, hybrids offer us that exactly in short while, for long term, with low risks and with very low costs(compared to setting up 12 route metro and high speed rail links). Its up to us to stop paying thousands of crores of our taxes on saving our oil companies, transport companies and to start making much more efficient cars. It is a much more sustainable way to move forward.

If you ask if we are ready for the upcoming fuel rise, Ill say no. Even with all the public transits we will not be shielded from Inflation because we still bank heavily on oil and are low on efficiencies.

But we are ready to engulf hybrids. If there was one capable company resident in India, they will reap the benefits of selling a hybrid in the coming years. I just hope and wish that this honor goes to an Indian maker. But I also know none of the Indian makers are ready for a full hybrid in India.

About the cost part, its the same every where around the world. No one in the right mind will like to spend their hard earned money on worthless(to them) things. If hybrids have started to gain acceptance else where its only because they start to see cost savings. I dont really see any difference in the way Americans think, though their culture might be different. It just makes logical sense.

Initially the cars will be a bit costly, but once it is accepted they will start to become cheap. Also since they save money daily their demand will be high, which means you can also sell it back at higher price. This is the same way diesel cars work now. Overall it will be cheaper to buy, own and run Hybrids for the next 5-6 years, compared to any petrol or diesel car. Cheaper for the user, the government, the people paying taxes. It gives room for free market, competition and user options that public transits cant offer as yet.

At Makrand, Beetle and other imported cars are sold at un reachable prices because our government takes a fair share as taxes from the. All these cars have over 110% taxes. If you ask me, I want them to drop the taxes to 25% for atleast Hybrid and Electric cars so that we can reduce fuel import. Our government is protecting the local companies, for which we pay the price, no competition. Our companies always needed foreign partners to innovate, lets at least open that gate. I can give you one example, from our own country. The Civic Hybrid, at first it was Rs.19L on road where it was selling 1-5 pcs a month. But one day Honda decided to clear stock of all the imported cars, so they dropped the price to Rs.13L. All the cars were sold out in 2-3 months. If the taxes were at 25%, they would still be selling the Civic Hybrid at Rs.13L. Market exists but products dont.

Read my blog on Hybrids. http://arunmur.blogspot.com

Answering Sapath's Debate.

I think its time to rewind back in time. There was a time in this world at the turn of the last century, where people could not afford their own cars. They went in large horse carts and steam driven rails. Even back then there was always the luxurious who could make and use their own horse drawn cart. The best mode of private transport back then was Cycles. But were every one happy. it was not sustainable, from humanitarian point of view. The problem was one could not construct big railway systems that suit every ones needs. Private transport gained a whole lot of importance and meaning over the century.

The advantages of private transportations were undeniable. Apart from that, the question is will public transport in every city currently provide the luxury of leaving behind your car. I have talked to people from NY where they have over 14 routes and is recognized as one of most established rail networks within the USA. There are still a lot of people there who choose their car even if they pay a bit more for parking and fuel. The reason they state is that their rail network is very slow and in-direct. I cannot go to my office without changing 2-3 tracks, which involves travelling to the center of the city and back. The office is really just 4 miles from my home. But if I use the rail I travel about 20 miles. I think Ill leave it to you to decide if travelling 4 miles is less efficient than 20 miles, even if trains were 4 times as efficient(Which they cant be thanks to the fact that there will be atleast 25 stops and high accelerations in these 20 miles). This will only become more apparent as the city grows bigger.

The point of the discussion is that it is impossible to build a public transport system that is simple, effective and meets every ones requirements. Your requirements might be different. An average public transit system meets about 40-50% users demands. A good public transit system with extensive coverage and maintenance can best cover 70% of the users demands. What do the rest of the people do, without cars? Also the cost and energy required to build a comprehensive public transit system is very high. Who do you think is paying for that? Our taxes, we dont exactly see this price.

Rails in India appears cheap because we have no standards. The brake systems that we use in our rails zipping at 120 kmph was designed in 1960's. The cleanliness of the rails are quite questionable, would like to sit 20 hrs next to a stinking toilet. We are the only people who use coir mats covered in plastic sheets as seats. Many lights and fans will not work. I can write on.

There is a reason we should be clean and green but it does not mean we go back to 1900's style of living. I know many cities are adopting public transit now a days, but its quite a gamble and is done mainly because we dont see other solutions.
Anyways, lastly i like to add, this debate is weather India is ready to accept hybrids. Weather Indians will buy hybrid cars if they get one in the market. Its not if India needs one.

The answer to both the questions from my side is a big YES.

Dear Makrand,

I would differ from your comparison of Reva with Hybrid car. Firstly Reva is not a hybrid car and then it is only a two seater. A two seat car is hardly to be liked by Indian customer who want to have valve of each rupee they spend.

In this era where people look for a car beyond driving to destination, I personally  feel Reva will not be considered

Regards

Abdul

I have worked on Electrical wiring of Hybrid cars and I am completely aware of how they work. I will be precise and would like to add that Hybrid vehicles should be introduced in India. They are more advantageous (of course there are disadvantages too) than the normal vehicles in terms of fuel consumption and efficiency.

Answering Mridula's Debate, Our commercial vehicle market has always been very slow in adoption of new technology and has  never  worked without discounted fuel prices. Hybrids are a far dream for these vehicles.

• First manufacturer's and government has to ensure replenishing more than 15 year old Trucks and busses which are not safe on the road. 
• We have to first Adopt CRDI and CNG technology to reduce pollution. 
• Its much more easy to introduce hydrogen to fleets of vehicles(like city busses) as the complexity of distribution of Fuel is very less. 
• On the highways we have to promote use of large and powerful trucks to save fuel and time. This is happening at a slow pace already thanks to high market availability and good roads.
• The Hybrid technology for big commercial vehicles like trucks are very different. They dont really need huge batteries to save fuel. Even a (AC) synchronous serial hybrid system like the ones used in the India railways will save huge amounts of fuel.
• The city commercial vehicle infrastructure can take many ways. 
  • Introduce off peak hour commercial vehicle movement. This way the same large vehicles can be used to most parts of the city.
  • Hybrids can be used here to transport certain materials but electric is likely to be a better options as the distance is well known.  But we desperately need more green vehicles even Sumo powered by CRDI technology will suffice for now.\
  • Many roads in our cities are small, so we have to stop using full size busses and trucks and move to smaller vehicles. This willl create a more dynamic traffic. 
  • Develop metro lines to carry goods too. The metro infrastructure is often used only about 50-60% round the clock.
  • Many more solutions possible.

Rather than the readyness, it is the present need. But I personally think that rather than the private users, if the Govt introduces hybrid vehicles for public transportation and Govt vehicles

Yes, it would be , considering some time required for pusging in enough resources required. Take for example as CNG buses in delhi, in the initial stage there was a huge demand for CNG and lot of hectic mess going around. But after then somehow things got fixed and buses get enough gas resource to ply over roads. So when more natural gas vehicles is introduced into market, oil companies should take enough measures to bring in more gas reserves to compensate the additional requirements. However this thing works when there is more demand. Hence there should be more initiatives from government to introduce natural gas / electrice vehicles and provide arrangements for resources required accordingly

Hybrid cars don't need charging anywhere. It runs like your regular car. Some cars can optionally be charged if they have big batteries, but it runs fine without charging.

And about electricity shortage, there too you are mis-informed. We definitely need more peak power but even now we have many GW electricity going waste at night because most types of power plants cant be shutdown(and restarted in less than 2 days) and there is on-an-average very low consumption at night.

Its this wasted power that we can use to run our car, with plug-in Hybrids/Electric cars. You will end up saving many thousand liters a day. Its far better than even using a bus/train, as we are capturing energy from a wasted source, not actually producing more power.

We need out power companies to provide us differential night billing for this to be even more effective.

Agree with you

I would support for one simple reason i don't like to waste money on fuel. we have to find some alternative for petrol driven cars. i have to say that the govt does not support even LPG or CNG the market for it is soo volatile it changes every day without getting updated news.even when the hybrid cars come our Indian politics be most benefited from it  not the general public.  

We need to understand the Need of the Hour i.e. we have to initiate & accept the alternative methods of Fuel conservation.

Its a much thought argument whether we are ready to accept the hybrid concept. Do we have enough resources to run hybrid vehicles successfully. The question still remains unanswered by auto mfg companies in India.