India best suited for Hybrid cars, Govt plans to bring more

Hybrid cars are more fuel efficient on Indian roads than the freeways of US or UK, as per a team of Berkeley Lab. They found that hybrid vehicles are more fuel efficient in countries such as India and China when compared to other countries.

The research team led by Indian-Amercian scientists simulated drives in two cities- New Delhi and Pune with Maruti Alto and used the Modified Indian Drive Cycle, the test for the official fuel economy rating. The result concluded that in India, hybrid vehicles can save fuel upto 47 to 48 percent over a conventional car while in China it can save about 53 to 55 percent. Whereas, in United States, the hybrid vehicle save upto 40% of fuel over the petrol/diesel powered cars.

The shortage in the number of hybrid cars on Indian roads is due to lack of subsidiary and incentive provided by government. In countries like United States and Germany, the hybrid cars are tax free which results in the low owning cost. However, last year, the Indian government had launched a national plan with a goal of getting six to seven million hybrid and electric vehicles (EVs) on road by 2020. The Government of India is also working closely to further analyse the results. According to Ambuj Sharma, Additional Secretary, India's department of heavy industry, "The research performed by Berkeley Lab has helped us understand in much better detail the real-world value of electric vehicles to India".

Its pretty obvious that in populated countries such as India and China, the hybrid cars are more fuel efficient, as the roads are congested with full of traffic and lack of highways that results in the burning of fuel but with the hybrid car we can save more.

Founded in 1931, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory is managed by the University of California for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science. Labs's scientific expertise has been awarded with 13 Nobel Prizes.