The Ferrari F1 machine

Contrary to popular belief, F1 cars are actually very Fuel Efficient for the amount of speed and performance they have. At one point of time, a few years back, Honda actually Won races back to back just because they had to carry lesser fuel in their energy efficient cars to complete the races. Less fuel translates to lesser weight, and lesser weight translates to better efficiency and speed. We can all see how that learning has translated into much efficient street cars from Honda.

The Honda F1 car, one of the most fuel efficient in the game

Rear of a Renault F1 car

Top view of a Renault F1 car

Some F1 numbers.

Race fuel consumption rate is normally around 75 liters per 100 kilometers traveled (3.1 US mpg – 3.8 UK mpg – 1.3 km/l). Nonetheless a Formula One engine is over 20% more efficient at turning fuel into power than most small commuter cars, considering their craftsmanship.

Source: Wikipedia

Many argue about the Carbon Footprint of each race, but they fail to imagine the reduction in Carbon Footprint of all vehicles benefitting from these races. Yes F1 is a testing ground for engineers (the best of them) from around the world.

It’s not quite the same type of hybrid drive-train you’d see in street vehicles, but in an exciting announcement, Max Mosely of F1 has announced that all cars will become hybrid by 2013, along with other changes to the vehicles.

Source: gas2.org

It’s not all that bad, but having them not to consume any fuel will be a real challenge.

No we are not here to argue weather the Nano is a good, bad or ugly idea. We are going to think slightly larger, as to why we are so deprived of Hybrids in India where the world seems to be heading everywhere with them.

Case in Point, the Honda Civic Hybrid. The car is a gem, the Hybrid is a darling, yes it does not have the power and torque to match its complete gas burning twin, but sure does a lot for the environment. And because of that, one would think that the authorities should actually stand up and promote such an effort, but we don’t really see that happening. The car costs a whopping 75% + over it’s gas burning counterpart.

The Honda Civic Hybrid, Green.. but at a price.

Why this double standard? Why ask people to get PUC certificates, Bharath III and Euro III and at the same time sell something that is 10 years ahead in terms of emission standards at astronomical prices?

I don’t have the answer for that. Probably our babus sitting in the Parliament do, or probably they are too busy to just sit around and fight elections on grounds of “Communal Harmony” to even sit up and notice. Or probably they are governed by larger money burning oil and gas giants who think it’s completely against their gains. You and I are smart, and we all know which option is True. Electric and Hybrid vehicles came about a long while back on this earth, but they never took off largely because the economy was run by giants pumping out tons and tons of oil and natural gas everyday. Our government depends on it, governments all over the world depend on this as well. Wars are fought over this, dictators are overthrown, cold wars are dissolved to give rise to new ones, etc etc.

The Electric and Hybrid Automobile scenario in India

The Reva. A lovely cute car which is a good effort. It's in need of dire transformation to actually survive as an Automobile.

We just have an excuse of an electric car in the form of Reva. The idea to replace personal transport over short distance with an electric vehicle is good, but severely lacks in Styling, Power, Personality and everything else a Car stands for. We have been harping around over it for almost 10 years now. People abroad have loved it, hated it, destroyed it pitted against an office table on TV shows, placed it as props in Hollywood movies and many things but drive it.

A Car is a mode of transport to carry more than one person, in an environment of his choice from Point A to Point B, regardless of the distance between these points.

The Reva, the only available electric car in India, does not fulfill that equation completely. It runs out of steam in about 60 Kms. And then you have to wait an agonizing 4 hours before it can get you back. You may say that its meant for zipping in the city, that’s true, but with ever-expanding limits of our large cities, taking a Reva from south Bangalore to the Airport can be impossible. Needless to say, the vehicle does not have a potent AC, any safety, no luggage space and barely enough space for 2 grown ups. The lesser we dwell in this area, the better it is, after all, it’s a good effort and it’s just that. A start.

That’s also the problem, it’s a start that we got stuck with. It’s same Ambassador which was a start that we got stuck with for generations. And for a long time we were stuck with Mahindra’s version of the Jeep as well, while the world went on galavanting in gas guzzling technological marvels.

The situation has not improved even today. We do have the latest (and not so latest) vehicles being ported to India, but we still shy away from the cutting edge. Somehow it is too sharp for our own good.

A Tesla Roadster does the same in style, but then it costs prohibitive. Not for the technology, but for it’s design, presence and performance all put together. The problem is, it’s no style factor and it does not enjoy any rebate in taxes being an electric, hence no one gets it here. But this does mean that the technology exists out there no push a car to the stratosphere just on electric power, and surprisingly, no one is willing to tap that in this country.

A non gas guzzling electric wonder which can put many petrol and even nitrous counterparts to shame.

Probably the Tesla Roadster is a bad example, after all, over the Reva, it scores only in the area of a larger range and a better personalized environment. Does not make much of a case.

So we focus out efforts on the “we love you so much” SUV sector. The vehicle in question is the Ford Escape, a version or variant of which is available to us in its diesel avatar. Not many of us know this, but Ford Escape was the world’s first Hybrid SUV back in 2005 (source) and till date they have sold more than 100,000 of these worldwide making a sizable dent in that CO² chart. Yep, and we have been encouraging the sale of Sumos, Taveras and Innovas to our IT companies to card their people around in hysterical quantities where a perfectly eco-friendly solution waits to be invited in the sidelines.

The Ford Escape Hybrid, although a Hybrid and it still relies on fossil fuel, it's a correct step at attaining a balance between the feasible and the dream.

Its time our so called “Green Brigades” woke up and promoted the right approach to alternative fuel. Probably Pro-Active Change is the approach to be taken instead of Active Protest.

Note: All interested in the debate of why Electric Cars never became popular, you can watch the Film Who Killed the Electric Car.

The rest of us, lets get together and get “The Technology” here.