Low cost Indian cars could be environmental disaster
With a population now at over 1.1 billion people and a fast growing economy, India has the potential to be a huge growth market for car-makers from traditional markets where growth has been stagnant in recent years. Indian company Tata Motors has announced plans to build a $2,500 car to appeal to middle income Indians and Nissan and Renault have responded with their own proposal for a cheap car. Even with India's low car ownership rate of 7-8 cars per 1,000 people (compared to 300-500 per 1,000 people in western markets) the huge population means that the streets of cities like Delhi and Mumbai are already incredibly crowded and pollution is growing.
Selling large numbers of low cost cars to tens or hundreds of millions of Indian drivers would not only amplify the traffic but also the emissions of carbon dioxide and other noxious pollutants. At the same time that developed countries are trying to cut their carbon emissions and pressuring rising economies like India and China to do the same. While car-makers are proposing these low-cost cars the government is trying to get buses and taxis to switch from gasoline to natural gas and also promote improvements in mass transit. Clearly it would be unfair to limit the potential for economic growth in other countries. However given the issues that have already been created in industrialized countries for the past century and a half we need to work with up-and-comers to find a better way forward.
[Source: Reuters]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Larry Huong 9:03PM (8/03/2008)
The gall of those lowly dark skinned people wanting to have vehicles!! Why can't they be happy running around in loincloths? Don't they care about the environment?
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Rahul Jawale 3:07PM (6/13/2009)
hahahaha. I hope that's just sarcasm.
George Krpan 7:15PM (7/02/2007)
They'll put all those cars in people's hands just as the oil supply starts to sputter.
What are they thinking?
Oh, is there going to be a scramble for oil. China and India trying to out maneuver the US, each other, and the rest if the world. Maybe China and India will do their own middle east invasion.
At least India was wise enough to license The Air Car technology. They can run the air compressors
with nuclear generated electricity.
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sunil 11:57AM (7/03/2007)
ha ha ha
i cannot believe the first line of the comment above. "put all those cars in people's hands". they have the right and are buying them just like people in u.s. i think it is very good idea that they buy more and more and mess up the ecological balance of this world completely and quickly. mat be that will open the eyes of americans driving 600 hp corvettes and suvs. and yes, wait till they start using tissue paper in the morning to wipe their asses. that is another shortage besides the oil shortage that the world should be getting ready for.
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Don 3:45PM (7/03/2007)
COULD BE an environmental diaster? India already IS an environmental disaster.
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George Krpan 9:30PM (7/03/2007)
Sunil,
I agree, hasten the demise.
My statement is accurate. Poor hapless Indians and Chinese. The oil age will be over for them before it really begins. At least the US got to enjoy it for 100 years or so.
There's an advantage to it though. India and China are not as dependent on the personal automobile as the US is. It will be tougher for the US to adjust and it might be it's downfall.
India and China have been foolish about their environment. This looks like the same kind of foolishness to me. Why don't they just skip over the ICE automobile and go directly to what's next. It's like nations who never put up telephone poles. They will never have to, they went directly to cellular.
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Manu Sharma 1:39AM (7/04/2007)
ABG just posted a follow up to this story here:
http://www.autobloggreen.com/2007/07/03/abg-reader-writes-a-rebuttal-to-our-indian-car-growth-post/
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Nimish Adani 2:19AM (7/05/2007)
George/Don, your comments are laced with racism. You are one of those who just can't digest India and China doing well.
It's a well-known fact that India's per capita emission is around 1/50th of that in US. Even the overall emissions are 1/6th that of the US. A majority of the vehicles currently sold in India run on diesel, LPG and CNG. India even has a low cost battery run car manufacturer doing well.
Also George, what makes you feel that countries like India do not have the sense and sensibility to handle nuclear power?
So before you guys comment on India/China/others, please try to read up and learn what these countries are. Stop making your own assumptions and writing stuff which reek of a superiority complex which simply can never digest others progressing.
Yes, fighting pollution is a challenge and there needs to be a debate on it but we all know who needs to pull up their socks first.
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Peter Hansen 8:10AM (7/05/2007)
Having recently spent six weeks in New Delhi, I wonder where all those cars are going to physically go. There are already monster traffic jams and if many of the bicycles and small motorcycles are replaced by cars, it's likely that the roads will become functionally impassable.
Additionally, India's public transit systems are already running well over capacity and the electric grid is seriously over-subscribed as well. In my opinion, It's not racist to realistically assess the prospects of both India and China given their current state of infrastructure development. I beleive that there is no way that either nation can build enough infrastructure quickly enough to cope with their superheated growth rates.
As an American, my experience in India has reinforced my belief that we need to re-engineer our own infrastructure as quickly as possible because the demands of high-growth economies means that cheap oil-based energy is permanently a thing of the past.
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Trideep Gogoi 5:58AM (7/08/2007)
Um Im sorry to burst your bubble but india has emissions control. At a minimum all cars sold in the country have to meet Euro II standards no matter how cheap. In the major metros Cars have to meet Euro II or III standards. So even if there is a cheap car it will meet environment standards. Im sick and tired of people thinking that Developing countries like india dont care about the environment.
Since the introduction of emissions controll New Delhi has seen a major reduction in Pollution When i was there 10 years ago you could see the sun on alteast half of the days, Now except on heavy traffic days the air ir relatively clear. Even the worst days are better than the good days in the older polluted times.
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Bholenath 1:54PM (7/24/2007)
Well,
Why we rich who have enjoyed the fruits of automible technology wants to save ourselves by asking poors to tighten thier belt? I say ket the world go to HELL if it goes just because everyone want to enjoy life the way west has done for last 100 years with utter disregard to anything ...forget about environment.
And then aren't we throwing dollars and pinching pennies? Your California governer can have 4 gas guzzeling Hummers and still can be environmentalist? Right. and you get worried like hell if someone in china drives a CNG car.
great guys...!
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JED 10:08PM (12/25/2007)
Perhaps instead of the gloom cycle, lets look at the positive... if a company has that level of potential demand AND is looking to make a more environmentally responsible car, and sell it in such volume that it could easily end up globally available at a low price... imagine the junk it could replace! And, if it's selling or producing in that volume and moves steadily into hybrids, alternative fuels, etc... couldn't this actually be a BIG benefit to the hyper-guzzling western buyer too? I'd prefer a $2500 58mpg clean car now over a $15,000 Smart car getting maybe 40mpg. Or over a $25,000 Honda...
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Val 3:38PM (12/25/2007)
That's pure crap and it looks like this article for somebody who works for one of the giant car manufacturers.
If somebody has $2500 in his pocket and happens to need a car, that person will go ahead and buy an used one which will polute the environment even more. So, what are the options here? Having more crappy, gas-guzzling, dated cars on the road or brand new cars that are not only cheaper to buy, but also save you a lot of money on gas? I, personally, would go for the new car. If you still want to drive your Hummer and fill the tank up every 2 hours, that's your choice.
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fred schumacher 9:26AM (1/05/2008)
Think it through and you'll see this is not an environmental disaster.
There is only a limited amount of petroleum. We are at peak oil. Increasing the number of vehicles does not mean more oil will be burned. It only changes the location of the burning.
However, the one lakh car shows a cost-effective way to replace the existing vehicle fleet in a rapid timeframe with a car getting triple the U.S. fleet average.
Improving the fuel economy to this degree makes perennial-sourced biomass carbon-neutral liquid fuel a possibility to replace petroleum.
I don't like battery powered cars. Why? Because they will run on coal. Petroleum is bad, but coal will kill us all. If the electricity for transportation comes from coal, we're finished.
Tata hasn't created a monster. They've shown a way to transition to a sustainable future.
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Enrique Palazzo 10:45AM (2/20/2008)
Earth-saving concerns aside, these little cars will lose badly in any confrontation with normal sized cars, pickups or SUV's. They are incredibly underpowered and unsafe.
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