Mumbai, December 29Union Minister Nitin Gadkari’s ambition to have flex fuel vehicles (FFV) running on Indian roads within the next six months appears to be a tall order, considering that the automotive industry would not even move to E20 by that time, a report prepared by an expert committee has stated.
FFVs can run either on 100 per cent petrol or 100 per cent ethanol or their blends. Present generation petrol-powered vehicles can run on blends to the extent of 10 per cent ethanol or E10. E20 or ethanol 20 per cent blending in a phased manner is slated to take place only by 2023, which has been brought forward from 2025.
“It is possible to roll out E20 material-compliant vehicles by April 2022 and E20 engine-compatible vehicles by April 2023. However, considering the supply of ethanol blended fuel, it is recommended that these may be rolled out all across the country from April 2023. Vehicles with E20 tuned engines can be rolled out all across the country from April 2025,” a report by the expert committee, formed under the aegis of NITI Aayog and Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, said.
“We have advised automobile manufacturers in India to start manufacturing FFVs and Flex Fuel Strong Hybrid Electric Vehicles complying with BS-6 norms in a time bound manner within a period of 6 months,” Gadkari tweeted on December 27.
The report adds that in order to use higher ethanol blends, the vehicles are supposed to be designed holistically to take care of material compatibility, engine tuning (spark timing) and optimisation (compression ratio) to garner the advantage of higher-octane ethanol blends.
“However, high compression ratio engines may face catastrophic failure due to engine knocking when operated with low or nil ethanol content (i.e. low octane fuel). Similarly, the vehicles which are designed for low or nil content of ethanol in gasoline will result in lower fuel economy if used with higher ethanol blends,” the report clarified.
Customer acceptance
Recommendations of the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM), the apex lobby body of vehicle manufacturers, in the same report, have pointed out that E100-compatible does not seem to be feasible for India since the cost of ownership and running cost are going to be very high compared with regular vehicles.
“It should be noted that flex fuel vehicles themselves could be more expensive than regular vehicles due to the upgradation of materials, engine parts and fuel system. Further, running cost (due to lower fuel efficiency) will be higher by more than 30 per cent when run with E100 fuel. Unless the E100 fuel cost at retail outlets is made more than 30 per cent cheaper, customers will not prefer the fuel/use for their vehicle. Customer acceptance will be the big challenge in this case,” SIAM stated in the report.
The cost of flex fuel vehicles (four-wheelers) would be higher in the range of ₹17000 and ₹25000. The two-wheeled flex fuel vehicles would be costlier in the range of ₹5,000 and ₹12,000 compared to normal petrol vehicles, according to SIAM.
While the calorific value of ethanol is two-third of petrol, according to Gadkari, by use of better technology ethanol’s calorific value can be brought on par with that of petrol.
“There is 50 per cent saving on cost because of the price difference between the two fuels (ethanol and petrol). Ethanol is more environmentally friendly than petrol,” Gadkari had said in an investment conference held in Mumbai on December 17.