- Flex engines will provide an option to use more fuel types

- Car manufacturers are capable of introducing flex engines for India

Nitin Gadkari, the Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways has asked the delegates of the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) to start producing flex engines in India. These engines will provide an option to use more than one type of fuel and will reduce emissions when run on ethanol.

To encourage alternative fuel usage, the government has decided to allow the automakers worth more than 250 crore to set up their own fuel pumps, provided they sell green fuel too. The Union minister believes that the car manufacturers can introduce flex engines at par with Brazil, the US, and Canada if they could leapfrog from BS4 to BS6 norms. Currently, automakers like BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Hyundai, Honda, Toyota, and Suzuki offer flex engine options for vehicles in the US, Canada, and Brazil. Therefore, the Union Minister is looking forward to similar initiatives in the Indian market as well.

The latest recommendations from the Union Minister have come during the recent meeting with the delegates from SIAM, which wanted the government to defer the corporate average fuel efficiency (CAFE) norms proposed to be effective from 2022. The CAFE norms set the standard fuel economy target by vehicle weight or size. By 2030, India plans to reduce the greenhouse gas emission intensity of its GDP by 33 to 35 per cent. The stricter emission norms will ensure that the automakers produce fuel-efficient vehicles with lesser CO2 emissions.