Toyota pitches for ethanol hybrids as India looks at electric future
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Sabitgarh: At a time when India’s auto industry is pushing for electric vehicles (EVs) as the clean transport of the future, Japanese carmaker Toyota Kirloskar Motor believes the government should help incentivize hybrid flex-fuel technology powered by ethanol as the best clean fuel bet. Such a fuel would be insulated from geopolitical uncertainties at a time when China has put hurdles in the development of EVs, according to a senior executive of the company.
Offering tax relief and emission norm benefits to flex-fuel vehicles can help in pushing manufacturers to popularize such vehicles, Vikram Gulati, Toyota’s country head and executive vice president for corporate affairs and governance, told Mint in an interview. He pointed out that ethanol-powered hybrid flex-fuel vehicles are the cleanest among all technologies if the entire lifecycle of the vehicle is seen instead of just tail pipe emissions. “We are globally the most competitive in internal combustion engines.
This helps to sustain that internal combustion engine technology. It's not a bad technology," he noted, adding that an internal combustion engine with clean fuel is as clean as any technology. “For example, you could use an internal combustion engine with hydrogen.
It's the cleanest, you could use it with pure ethanol. It's amongst the cleanest," Gulati said. Flex fuel vehicles can run on any blend of ethanol with gasoline, including 100% gasoline.
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