Going Green ..

Finally the first hybrid car came to India (yesterday). It’s from Honda, the Honda Civic. In the automobile field, a hybrid car is one of the best options to go green.

The hybrid car that arrived in India runs on petrol (engine) and electricity (motor). The battery gets charged (using regenerative braking system) when the car is running on petrol. At low speeds and when we are waiting at traffic signals, the petrol engine is turned off automatically to save petrol and cut pollution. But what is the funny part in it?

When it comes to India, they attract an import duty of 104% and thus the price gets (more than) doubled. Now its price tag is 2.15 million. Who will buy it then? News paper says “rich people with a green consciousness” will buy it. But I think it’s the ‘rich who just want to try out a new thing’ will buy it… Anyway, Honda already got 100 individual booking plus some corporate booking.

This is one aspect which the Indian government (or any other similar stupid government that exists in the world) should learn from the US policy in this regard. There what they do for such green car or green items (may be not every item) is import duty exemption. And in some cases not just that, they offer subsidy too.

Indian automobile industry produces about 2 million units per year. How green will it become if 100 green cars ply all over India? So, the price of green cars should come down and more importantly, there are hundreds of thousands of vehicles which violate emission norms and those should be addressed first, if anybody is really concerned about environment…