As India places extra of the emissions-cutting biofuel ethanol in its petrol, customers complain it damages their engines.
The authorities’s fast-expanding ethanol programme goals to chop pricey oil imports by mixing petrol with ethanol, a biofuel derived from agricultural produce or natural waste that burns extra cleanly than conventional gasoline.
India final month hit its goal of reaching a 20% ethanol combine in petrol, referred to as E20 petrol, 5 years forward of schedule.
But automotive reviewer Amit Khare, who reaches 15 million folks each month throughout social media platforms, together with YouTube, Meta and Instagram, criticised the gasoline.
“Ethanol is a dry and corrosive fuel,” Khare advised the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
“It can damage several parts involved in supplying fuel to the engines,” he mentioned. “Neither the government nor the petrol pumps in the country are informing users about all these issues … Consumers are being kept in dark.”
Thousands of frightened drivers shared their fears in feedback on a video he posted on the difficulty late final month.
Consumers are demanding the proper to decide on what they put of their automobiles, filling social media with complaints of decrease gasoline effectivity, harm to older engines and the following pricey repairs.
Punjab-based automotive critic Sunderdeep Singh mentioned the federal government ought to make it obligatory for petrol stations to promote completely different blends and clearly colour-code them.
“Most consumers do not know how much ethanol is mixed in the petrol they are buying,” he advised the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
The authorities mentioned on Monday considerations over E20 gasoline had been unfounded. The Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas mentioned the criticism lacked “technical foundation” and mentioned its personal experiences discovered no main engine harm or efficiency loss.
The authorities admitted mileage would possibly dip barely, by between 1% and a pair of% in newer automobiles and by as much as 6% in older ones, however mentioned this may very well be managed with routine servicing.
Vehicle homeowners responded swiftly, sharing mileage numbers on-line and accusing the federal government of hiding the reality.
Khare mentioned he examined an E20-compliant automotive for 2 months and noticed a mileage drop of between 5% and 6%.
There isn’t any publicly out there knowledge on how most of the thousands and thousands of automobiles and motorbikes offered earlier than 2023 are compliant with E20 gasoline, however Khare estimates most of them usually are not.
Biofuels are a key a part of the Indian authorities’s plans to chop greenhouse fuel emissions and the price of importing oil.
The coverage saved India about 1.06 trillion rupees ($12.09 billion) in crude oil import prices between 2014 and 2024, in response to authorities knowledge, and helped to keep away from 54.4 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions in the identical decade.
This is roughly the equal of the emissions from 12 million gasoline-powered automobiles a yr, in response to a calculator from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
But the positive aspects include trade-offs. India has ramped up ethanol manufacturing by diverting crops like sugarcane, maize and rice to make gasoline, lowering the supply of grains for folks and cattle, and shifting land away from meals manufacturing.
Two of India’s largest bike and scooter makers Hero MotoCorp and TVS Motor, have additionally issued advisories about ethanol and mentioned their autos made earlier than 2023 require modifications to the gasoline system to run effectively on E20.
Shell India warned clients that they bear the danger of engine harm or guarantee loss from E20 gasoline.
“It is unfair of the government to push us to use higher ethanol blends when our cars are not ready,” mentioned Bangalore-based car-owner Antony Mathew.
“The least the government can do, while charging over 30% tax on a new petrol car, is to ensure compatible fuel is available in the market.”
