The Hindu Business Line : 10% ethanol content plan will make cars expensive

E10-compatible
Current ethanol blend in petrol at 5%
Cars being made by Honda Siel Cars, General Motors India E10-compatible
Maruti expects to roll out E10 cars by year-end
Call to make ethanol-blended petrol cheaper than regular petrol

Priyanka Vyas

New Delhi, July 3Car makers are lukewarm to the Centre’s proposal to make 10 per cent ethanol blending of petrol (E10) mandatory by next year. The move to double the blending percentage — from the current five per cent — would require alterations in the engines of both new as well as existing cars, they say.

In the event of 10 per cent ethanol-doped petrol or E10 becoming mandatory, car makers would have to incur an additional cost of Rs 2,000 to 3,000 on all new vehicles.

For existing cars, customers would have to spend even more — roughly Rs 5,000 to 6,000 — to make them run on E10 fuel, according to an official of a leading domestic auto major, who did not want to be quoted.

Maruti Udyog Ltd has already started working on making cars that are compatible with higher level of ethanol content. “Going ahead, we are working on cars that are compatible with E10,” said the Maruti R&D Head, Mr I.V.Rao.

Maruti expects these cars to be rolled out by the end of this year. Hyundai Motors India Ltd has not given any definite time frame by when it would launch these cars.

This contradicts the general belief that cars on the roads now can run on petrol doped with E10; it is only in the event of the blending percentages rising beyond these levels that call for alterations in the engine.

The problem with ethanol blending, explains Mr Rao, has to do with the ‘hygroscopic’ or moisture holding property of ethanol. This attraction of dissolved or suspended water can lead to corrosion of engine components, besides gum, varnish and carbon deposit formation problems.

To address this, car makers will then have to use special plastics, corrosion-resistant stainless steel and other expensive material in the fuel tanks and lines. Further, ethanol has lower calorific value and is not as volatile as petrol. Therefore, as the blending percentage increases, the engine becomes progressively difficult to start in cold weather conditions.

“The change from E5 to E10 cannot be viable unless the Centre consciously decides to make ethanol-blended petrol cheaper than regular petrol. Only then will there be an incentive for customers to spend the extra Rs 2,000 to Rs 6,000 to make their cars E10-compatible”, sources pointed out. Forcing consumers or fuel stations to dispense only E10 petrol will not work, they added.

The cars currently being manufactured by Honda Siel Cars Ltd (the Accord and Civic range) and General Motors India (Chevrolet, Optra, Corsa) are already E10-compatible.

This is not so for Maruti Udyog and Hyundai Motors India, whose existing models cannot run on E10 petrol.

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