Draft National Auto Policy lays thrust on green mobility

The government today unveiled the draft National Auto Policy, which lays a major thrust on rapid adoption of green mobility in India, to meet the nation's environmental targets and leverage the global opportunities created by the technology shift.
"Green Mobility will be the future of the global automotive industry. India needs to rapidly develop building capabilities, scale and increase consumer adoption," said the draft of the policy released by the Heavy Industries Ministry.
The policy flags the lack of clarity on government strategy for green mobility, and reasons behind low demand for green vehicles in India.
The draft highlighted that policy announcements by different government ministries and supporting bodies in the recent past will need to be aligned with the green technologies that will be the focus of government incentives and infrastructure investments.

Moreover, it said, the investments and product decisions to ramp-up the green mobility manufacturing base will require a long-term roadmap and vision.
"Large-scale adoption of green mobility options is limited by consumer concerns regarding technical performance of vehicles, reliability and dependability, limitation on range and refuelling options, higher upfront costs etc. Consumer awareness of the benefits of green vehicles along with incentives for purchase in the initial years will be essential to boost adoption," said the draft auto policy.

For the national auto policy, green mobility refers to all those mobility options that emit lower emissions -- in terms of CO2 g/km than pure Internal Combustion Engine vehicles -- through the use of alternate fuels, drive-train technologies or other measures.

These include bio-fuel and methanol based mobility; compressed natural gas (CNG); electric and hybrid mobility; and hydrogen energy and fuel cell based mobility.
The National Auto Policy is aimed at prescribing policy guidelines and an enabling framework to achieve the envisaged growth objectives.