{"id":35304,"date":"2023-05-10T03:01:33","date_gmt":"2023-05-09T21:31:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=35304"},"modified":"2025-04-20T23:36:25","modified_gmt":"2025-04-20T18:06:25","slug":"transition-to-electric-and-gas-fuelled-vehicles-what-a-total-ban-on-diesel-vehicles-could-mean-in-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/transition-to-electric-and-gas-fuelled-vehicles-what-a-total-ban-on-diesel-vehicles-could-mean-in-in\/","title":{"rendered":"Transition to Electric and Gas-Fuelled Vehicles: What a Total Ban on Diesel Vehicles Could Mean in India"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><strong>What\u2019s in today\u2019s article?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Why in News?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>What is the Background of this Proposal?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Why are Carmakers moving away from Diesel?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>The Proposal<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Issue with the Proposal<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Why in News?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>The Energy Transition Advisory Committee<\/strong> has recommended a ban on the use of diesel-powered 4-wheel vehicles by 2027 in cities with a population over 1 million.<\/li>\n<li>The panel, headed by former petroleum secretary Tarun Kapoor and formed by the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, has instead recommended <strong>transition to electric and gas-fuelled vehicles.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2><strong>What is the Background of this Proposal?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>According to the Petroleum Planning &amp; Analysis Cell,<strong> diesel currently accounts for about 40%<\/strong> of India\u2019s petroleum products consumption.<\/li>\n<li>The panel\u2019s recommendations come in the wake of the government\u2019s stated aim to reduce GHG emission, and to <strong>produce 40% of its electricity from renewables as part of its 2070 net zero goal.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Since 2020, most carmakers have taken significant steps towards deleveraging their diesel portfolios.\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Maruti Suzuki<\/strong>, the country\u2019s largest passenger vehicle manufacturer, stopped making diesel vehicles from April 1, 2020.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Diesel cars accounted for <strong>48% of passenger vehicle sales in the country in 2013<\/strong> due to the sharply lower price of diesel as compared to petrol.<\/li>\n<li>But this changed when the <strong>decontrol of fuel prices started in 2014<\/strong>. The price difference has since come down to around Rs 7 per litre (from Rs 25).<\/li>\n<li>Consequently, diesel cars accounted for <strong>less than 20% of overall passenger vehicle sales<\/strong> in 2021-22.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2><strong>Why are Carmakers moving away from Diesel?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>There are increased emissions of oxides of nitrogen (<strong>NOx<\/strong>).<\/li>\n<li>An external trigger &#8211; the <strong>Volkswagen emissions scandal<\/strong>, which led to an increase in the negative perception against diesel across markets, including India.<\/li>\n<li><strong>The rollout of the new BS-VI<\/strong> (directly from BS-IV)<strong> emission norms<\/strong> (the reason why Maruti Suzuki announced an exit) from April 1, 2020, involves prohibitively high cost of upgrading diesel engines to meet the new standard.\n<ul>\n<li>While petrol vehicles needed upgrades for this transition, these were limited to catalysts and electronic control upgrades.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>The Proposal:<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>A ban on diesel-powered four-wheelers in <strong>all Million Plus cities and all towns with high pollution <\/strong>has to be enforced in five years, i.e., by 2027.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Commercial vehicles <\/strong>may transition to <strong>LNG <\/strong>in the short term and <strong>no diesel city buses addition be allowed in urban areas.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>City transport should be a mix of <strong>Metro trains and electric buses<\/strong> by 2030 to drive transition towards clean fuel urban public transport.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Issue with the Proposal:<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>People still prefer diesel vehicles:<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>The higher fuel economy<\/strong> <strong>of diesel engines: <\/strong>This stems from the greater energy content per litre of diesel, and the inherent efficiency of the diesel engine (do not use spark plugs, have higher compression ratios).<\/li>\n<li><strong>Offer more torque (rotational or turning force):<\/strong> Also, they are less likely to stall as they are controlled by a mechanical or electronic governor.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>How practical it would be to implement the ban: <\/strong>This is especially true in the case of medium and heavy commercial vehicles (transport trucks, buses).\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Around 87% of diesel fuel sales<\/strong> are in the transport segment, with trucks and buses accounting for about 68%.<\/li>\n<li>UP, Maharashtra and Haryana makeup almost <strong>40%<\/strong> of the diesel sold in India.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Transition challenges:<\/strong> While it seems easier at the moment to convert diesel trucks to compressed natural gas (CNG), there are certain limitations &#8211;\n<ul>\n<li>CNG being used for shorter distances, and<\/li>\n<li>Its lower tonnage carrying capacity.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Already compliant with current emission norms: <\/strong>Carmakers in the diesel segment and oil marketing companies (reducing the level of sulphur in diesel) claim to have invested heavily to transition their diesel fleet from BS-IV to BS-VI emission norms.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3><strong>Q1) What are Catalytic converters?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>A catalytic converter is an exhaust emission control device that converts toxic gases and pollutants in exhaust gas from an internal combustion engine into less-toxic pollutants by catalysing a redox reaction.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<h3><strong>Q2) What is the difference between CNG and LNG?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>LNG is frozen in order to turn it into liquid form, whereas CNG is pressurised to the point where it is very compact. LNG takes up less storage space on a vehicle than CNG, and it also offers an energy density that can be compared to diesel fuel.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Source:\u00a0<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/explained\/explained-economics\/total-ban-on-diesel-vehicles-india-impact-explained-8599373\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>What a total ban on diesel vehicles could mean in India<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Energy Transition Advisory Committee has recommended a ban on the use of diesel-powered 4-wheel vehicles by 2027 in million plus cities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":35305,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-35304","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-mains-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35304\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}