[powertrain]

Originally Posted by Aditya

Want to reduce your carbon footprint? Use your existing car for longer

Source

Very informative!

Someone please sent this to the stupid NGT!

So many perfectly reliable, fuel efficient cars that otherwise could have served their owners were scrapped because the NGT is actually working hand in glove with the car manufacturers!

Regards,
Powertrain

[Autolock123]

Originally Posted by powertrain

Very informative!

Someone please sent this to the stupid NGT!

So many perfectly reliable, fuel efficient cars that otherwise could have served their owners were scrapped because the NGT is actually working hand in glove with the car manufacturers!

Regards,
Powertrain

I think we need to look at the recommendations by NGT in holistic way. The question of not only of CO2 but also of other pollutants like NOx, PM. A 10 year old car means its a BSII/BSIII car where NOx levels were >700% than what it is in BSVI in diesels also the PM levels were >150% that what it is today. These pollutants are causing serious harm to humans.

One would argue the comparison of emissions from entire lifecycle of new vehicle vs using the older one. But in my opinion its better to move to a better tech.

[DicKy]

Originally Posted by Autolock123

I think we need to look at the recommendations by NGT in holistic way.....One would argue the comparison of emissions from entire lifecycle of new vehicle vs using the older one. But in my opinion its better to move to a better tech.

The holistic approach should have lead to decreasing pollution in the years past the NGT ban, right? Didn't happen.

These bans are just knee jerk actions to a whole gamut of administrative/legislative failures from farming to urban civic sense. Not sure how a well maintained 15 year old car that barely runs a couple of thouand kilometres in an year is polluting than a badly maintained three year old car that is used extensively on the roads.

[Kosfactor]

Originally Posted by Autolock123

I think we need to look at the recommendations by NGT in holistic way. The question of not only of CO2 but also of other pollutants like NOx, PM. A 10 year old car means its a BSII/BSIII car where NOx levels were >700% than what it is in BSVI in diesels also the PM levels were >150% that what it is today. These pollutants are causing serious harm to humans.

One would argue the comparison of emissions from entire lifecycle of new vehicle vs using the older one. But in my opinion its better to move to a better tech.

You say Holistic in the beginning of your statement and then look only at tail pipe emissions alone on the other end - exactly like NGT.

CSE Study India (Study: Indian cars are parked 95% of the time)

According to government`s report vehicle`s are parked , sitting idle 95% of their time. So replacing these mostly unused vehicles that used a lot less resources to build to begin with and then spend so much energy to build newer more complex vehicles, its just absurd.

Caring for environment beyond virtue signaling is rare because the countries that are supposedly championing climate programs are all sitting in the centrally airconditioned million dollar homes, driving luxury cars etc. We should avoid listening to their nonsense and follow our own solutions.

A lot of people can simply walk up to the nearest shop to purchase something instead of purchasing a scooter as an example, however they would instead have 4 scooters at home, then a car for weekend which would sit idle and clock 10,000 Kms in 10 years, then it gets replaced by an EV and tell everyone else that its the right thing to do for the environment, really?

[kaviprem]

A basic question.
All are talking about years of usage of car v/s the number of KMs that a car has run.
What's termed as "well used" or "used enough" in terms of KMs that a car has run?
When [total KMs run] do you think, we can decide the car can be retired?
I guess, this is dependant on several factors - Engine life to begin with, Car Build, Support, etc...
Looking forward to an healthy discussion here.

[Mustang Sammy]

Originally Posted by DicKy

I am not going to talk about the Escalade/Range Rover/S class/ chopper/ private jet/ yacht thingy. But these are people who are waited upon and have their basic needs taken care of by the government, organisations or corporates. All they can think of is how to make living in the earth sustainable with the evergrowing population while still maintaining their lifestyle.

Indeed. Austerity for thee, not for me.

This hypocrisy of our ruling elites really gets my goat. How many world “leaders” do you see getting ferried around in EVs? How many police cars and military vehicles are electric?
Of course they need the reliable and rapid refueling process of ICEs. We on the other hand should be grateful they let us ride our electric scooters, till those are also taken away and we are left with mass transit while living in giant anthill cities.
Asimov’s book “The Caves of Steel” and the newer movie “Elysium” are prescient in many ways.

[GeeTee TSI]

A blanket rule to allow old cars are also not practical in the times we live in. We need to differentiate between polluting old cars and compliant, adjusted for vintage irrespective of the RTO location

Otherwise the jalopy which belches out smoke happily plies in the outskirts

[qaqa]

I think it is intuitive that using old cars for longer is more environment friendly than buying a new car.

However, there is no requirement that the same user should continue using the car - the car would still be in use even after sale albeit in the hands of a different owner that's all. It is not that cars will would be scrapped once they are sold. For example, if i sell my used sedan, a buyer who might have otherwise purchased a new hatchback might settle for my used sedan. So net net, a negative environmental impact would only arise if,
a. The car is not sold, but is scrapped; or
b. The car is bought by someone who would not have otherwise purchased a car

In India, cars are run till they literally fall apart. I think the vast majority of cases would neither fall under 'a' nor 'b'. Not sure if the industry studies look into this aspect.

Coming to my specific case, my second car is a Ford Ecosport AT which is about 5 years old and has only run about 35K. It is principally used for self drive within Bangalore, typically for shorter trips. I get mileage of not more than 6-7kmpl (sometimes much lower) since it is primarily used in bumper to bumper inner city traffic. My running on this car will not be more than 5K per year.

I have been toying with the idea of replacing the Ecosport with an EV - maybe a Tiago or Nexon to handle city duties. Idea was that an EV is unaffected by bumper to bumper traffic and would continue to be efficient.

Not sure if it makes economic or environmental sense though. The Ecosport is also feature rich and an EV like a Tiago might actually be a tangible downgrade.

Not able to make up my mind on whether to switch to an EV or not. Would like to understand members thoughts on this topic.

PS- my primary car is a Tucson which runs about 20k per year with a mixed highway and city driving. If I get an EV some of the running would shift from the Tucson to the EV

[gopa99]

I guess the author is suggesting a shift in our mindset while not specifically advocating use of any polluting car vis a vis a modern BS 6.2 certified vehicle.
In my case I have a car now for 7 years which is actually 2 generations older than its current avatar. But given the excellent serviceability, drive-ability and affordability it offers it doesn’t make any sense to change for an upgrade anytime in the near future.

[cefiljoseph]

Hi, great thread and giving my two cents here.

This environmental push to electric cars reminds me of juice packs that came with paper straws wrapped in plastic

There is so much greenwashing happening around electric cars in my humble opinion. To begin with I must clarify that I am not one of those people who believes cars should only be ICEs and stuff. In fact, I think electric makes much more sense in cars albeit with a caveat that battery tech must catch up. I personally think the cars should be able to do 1000-1500 kms of real world travel without hiccups and reliable charging network. This is the point of range which few or no ICE cars can match and would be the pivotal point.

Now with electric car being environmental friendly, it's a tricky situation. If environmental friendly was the goal, the electric cars would be aimed at maximum efficiency. However, that is not the case with most of the cars on sale now. If a customer needs to make a shift, they would need cars that do better than ICE to justify the technology. Therefore, manufacturers are making some pretty inefficient cars just that now they are powered by electrons. For instance, when the hummer went electric, it gives the impression of a car going from guzzler to green. This isn't the case in reality tho because hummer really went from a gas guzzler to an electric guzzler which doesn't make it very 'friendly' to the environment. Nonetheless, the running emissions would be far better from ICE cars even if the electricity came from the dirtiest of the plants because of how thermodynamically inefficient ICE engines are.

All that said, if someone were to get an electric car over their ICE, environmental reasons should be the least of the reasons simply because of the fact that this is the first generation or the start of this tech and whatever you buy today regardless of how expensive it is would be obsolete in a decade if not a few years. Think about something like the iPhone 4S. It was the hottest thing at the time and I would have killed to have one back then. However, today, even if someone gave me one for free I would take it because of how unusable it is even if they battery has been replaced. I don't see how electric cars would be significantly different from this. However, let's say someone had a fortuner or a fiesta at the same time. It might not be the latest and greatest today but more than enough and usable for most people.

So, I personally as an advocate of environment as well as technology think two things about this electric car greenwashing.

First, the best thing you can do for environment is to not use a car for commutes and do the many things listed on the thread primarily rely on public transport.

Secondly, retain your car for as long as possible and invest in a good car when you absolutely need to buy one. My 2005 corolla is about 18 years old and the W211 is more than 15 years old. However, by not replacing these, it saves from one additional car being built. This saving is massive environmentally compared to the meagre saving made in emissions from an EV. Therefore, unless someone has a running of say above 1-1.5 lakh kms or so in say about 4 years, I don't see how an electric car would make things greener. Retaining your car and spending some extra on maintenance would be far cheaper than replacing the car and far more environmentally friendly.

On an end note, I also want to highlight on some things. Manufacturers and companies always want you to buy cars from them and try to push us into this materialistic loop of wanting more and more thing. This is the exact opposite of what is environmentally friendly. Moreover, as someone with a degree in environmental studies, the idea that cars pollute so much isn't exactly true. Most of the pollutions is caused by a handful of large corporations. If the government could ask these corporations to even lower their emissions by say 10-20 percentage, we all can happily drive V8s all day everyday

[vinya_jag]

Came across this visualisation here
https://elements.visualcapitalist.co...gine-vehicles/


I also always felt that keeping one’s car for longer would offset for any pollution caused.

But maybe people who drive their cars more than 10000 Kms a year, or putting it the other way, if you drive for more than 1.5 hours in a day, there is a better chance of offsetting more carbon in an electric.

Also for folks like me, who only ride bike, or at times, cycle to office, we would rather stand next to an electric car than a Combustion engine in a traffic signal

[KiloAlpha]

About a year ago, I was seriously contemplating replacing our existing petrol scooter - TVS Wego - with an Ather/iQube. Given that our usage is about 4000km per year, I did the math on both lifetime emissions and cost, and concluded that it will be friendlier for both wallet and environment overall for me to use the petrol powered scooter until it dies (i.e., until it becomes unserviceable at ~15 years old), and then replace it with an electric one.

Now this thread got me thinking about the same question all over again.

Vehicles that see higher usage ought to move ASAP to electric. These vehicles include taxis, auto rikshaws, city buses, last-mile delivery trucks, police patrol, certain categories of government/municipality vehicles, people who commute long distance in urban/suburban settings. These vehicles cause 80% of vehicular pollution in our cities and our health will certainly benefit greatly if these types of vehicles were all electric.

With ICE vehicles that see less usage (e.g. my "very dirty" diesel car which now runs ~3000km per year), there will be a significant cost to the environment up-front if these were to be replaced by electric vehicles. A majority of this up-front environmental impact will be invisible, with a visible impact to urban air quality. Overall environmental impact will be less if these ICE cars were used until they became unserviceable, and then replaced with zero emission vehicles.
However, what if the said ICE car was located in a big city, and was sold to someone in a small town for whom it was their first car? In that case, the environmental impact of the buyer will be lowered as the environmental cost of manufacturing the ICE car is already sunk. Urban air quality will improve in the big city, and deteriorate in the small town. In effect, we will be shifting the tailpipe emission away. If you think about it, even an electric car is not zero emissions - it just shifts the emissions away from the tailpipe to the power plant.

The correct answer? Depends on usage, I guess. Higher usage in urban/suburban areas calls for a switch to electric ASAP. With low usage, switch when the cost (environment & economic) of old ICE overtakes that of new Electric.