[ACM]

Exactly.

Centre always blames the states for their portion of the taxes, but to give a boost to a sector it can always make it's portion zero for say 5 years till it becomes mainstream.

Frankly this latest turn towards hybrids seems be only about the dumb svhs or start stop micro hybrid junk.

India should make central taxes of all kinds zero on Lithium Ion Batteries for 5 years to boost hybrids and electrics equally in a significant manner. The same can be done for electric motors used in car drive trains.

Simple moves. Frankly no brains with the powers to be in my view unless I see something worthwhile. (Across all parties and bureaucrats).

[HKap]

Originally Posted by GTO

That's hardly the case. The government has always put up a hard stance - almost step-motherly - toward the auto industry, 50% of which is Maruti's. If Maruti had any special relationships with the government, cars wouldn't be so heavily taxed, 10 to 15 year old cars wouldn't be banned in Delhi NCR and new safety + emission norms wouldn't be coming up. India's auto industry is as much about Maruti as the others combined.

Maruti doesn't care about the heavy taxation. The segments they play in are not the ones facing the brutal taxes. They have locally manufactured cars and their sales numbers also suggest that they are not affected at all by the higher taxes. In fact, I would argue that the heavy taxes on CBU and CKD cars are helping them.

Banning 10-15 year old cars in NCR is good news for them...People will be forced to buy new cars....Gadkari has actually said that on record.

As far as safety and emission norms are concerned, these should have been implemented long time ago (airbags and ABS at least). Which of the manufacturers would have been the hardest hit if these were mandatory in 2014? Honda, VW and Hyundai would have been fine.

[landcruiser123]

In the Indian context, it makes sense only if we have hybrids that can run purely on electric power for quite a distance.

Quoting myself from a previous post:

Originally Posted by landcruiser123

This policy needs to be set right- Maruti milked the policy …..A lot of fuel is wasted in start-stop driving and idling in choked city roads and bottlenecks. If it weren't for our badly planned infrastructure, we would consume much lesser fuel with our small engines, but that's a topic for another thread.

…..electricity for cars is quite a while away. In the mean while, Hybrids can save a significant amount of fuel.

The government should define what kind of hybrid it is going to give the tax break to. In loose terms, I think a tax break can be given to a hybrid car which:

->Operates on pure electric power for 15 km: ARAI can develop a 5 test conditions so to minimize loopholes. (Remember the far from reality FE tests?) The car can be certified for a tax break if the average distance of all the test conditions are 15km with the minimum distance (amongst all test runs) is >=60% of the maximum distance (amongst all test runs.)

->Operates at a minimum speed of 25 kmph without the aid of an IC engine

->Operates all necessary ancillaries without a requirement to start the IC engine

^^Note that these numbers are not quoted with any scientific evidence behind them. If anyone here has done a lot of research on traffic patterns and their relation with FE, please enlighten us.

Originally Posted by GTO

I agree that hybrids should be heavily subsidized. As I've said a zillion times before, hybrid technology is ready, can be rolled out in months and will improve the fuel efficiency of every car by

Agree here. The gains may not be big in terms of overall efficiency numbers-the Honda Jazz may not give 30 kmpl. But a Honda Jazz giving 22kmpl in both city and highway conditions is a huge step ahead.

EVs may or may not be the future, but they are still a long time away from mass adoption.

EVs are the future, a 2040 goal for India is ambitious. USA can afford these technologies and the infrastructure required to support them, but India is going to have major issues charging cars.