Gadkari bats for shift to alternative sources of fuel

Pune: Union road transport and highways minister Nitin Gadkari, speaking at the valedictory session of the Symposium on International Automotive Technology (SIAT) 2021, urged manufacturers to focus on salvage from scrapped vehicles to tide over the global semiconductor shortage.
He also asked Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI), organisers of the symposium, to help state transport agencies, many of which are in the red due to the rising fuel costs, to shift to more efficient and cheaper alternative sources.
“Hydrogen fuel development is very important to mobility. The government has already notified standards for fuel cells and retrofitting, including for long-run vehicles. The cost of retrofitting vehicles is around Rs 10 lakh, which is recoverable within 295 days. ARAI should set up an ecosystem to help state transport agencies with the conversion of their fleets to alternative fuels, such as electricity, hydrogen, bio-CNG, ethanol, and others, as it would result in huge savings,” Gadkari said.
He also asked ARAI to work with Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) — which are working to develop indigenous clean energy and energy storage solutions — to develop “long-life, low-cost, high-efficiency” EV batteries.
Gadkari also emphasized the need to use ethanol in mobility and follow the example of countries such as Brazil, which he said has one of the cleanest energy matrices in the world.
“The use of ethanol in vehicles should be encouraged, and we want to introduce flex-fuel engines, which can run on petrol blended with ethanol. It emits significantly less greenhouse gases. ARAI should develop BS-VI or Euro-VI equivalent flex-fuel engines,” Gadkari further added.