While Americans wonder if Mahindra will ever bring its diesel-powered trucks and utes to the US market, its main offerings are coming under attack at home. India’s Environmental Minister Jairam Ramesh put diesel-powered SUVs on blast this week, calling the oil-burning utes “criminal” and telling a UN conference that
We are worried about the rate of green house emissions from transport sector. There is need for mandatory fuel efficiency standards. Big vehicles like SUVs should stay off roads
Minister Ramesh’s plan is two-fold: first, he is calling for an end to India’s subsidy of diesel fuel, arguing that diesel contributes disproportionately to India’s greenhouse gas emissions. The second portion of his plan is more controversial, but should sound familiar to American readers: get rid of those nasty SUVs. Ramesh explains
Put a penalty on the type of cars you don’t want to see on the roads, which are diesel-driven cars, SUVs… We cannot ask people to buy or not buy a particular car. But through an effective fiscal policy, we can certainly have an impact
India’s auto industry insists it’s ready for diesel prices to be cut free, but they’re fighting back against Ramesh’s suggestion of a jihad on SUVs.
One industry expert tells OneIndia
The Minister needs to have some more facts and figure in mind. See in the early 90s when the diesel contribution to the automobile was barely between 3-5 percent, today in 2010 it is almost 37 percent and what are the volumes we are talking of SUVs in that is not more than 2-3 percent… how is that going to help anybody in banning SUVs. Why not ban the entire diesel range– taxis and commercial vehicles — which are running on subsidised diesel?
And Ramesh has already fought off accusations that his anti-diesel campaign would hurt farmers by arguing that
the real beneficiaries of the subsidy were owners of “BMWs, Benzs and Hondas”, not the farmers.
A BMW spokesman fired back, arguing
we meet all stipulated emission standards. To check emissions, the government should come out with a scrappage policy for old vehicles like buses and autos
But, at the end of the day, India faces some tough choices as it seeks to both grow its market for cars and keep its pollution levels down. And if Mahindras can pass the EPA’s emissions tests, the problem does seem to be more with old vehicles than modern diesels. But, as other markets have already found, SUVs make a fantastic scapegoat. Expecting logic to rule in a debate over these polarizing vehicles is more than a little unrealistic.
Isn’t India the home of the 2-stroke Tut-tut taxi?
Personal transportation is a relatively luxury versus the US.
More to the point, isn’t the “Minister for Environment” just someone who has been given a minister-ship mainly because he has done Sonia Gandhi a favor and generally kissed up to the ruling dynasty? I mean, does that title even mean anything, or is this guy their version of Jim Hacker? He even looks a bit like Jim, if you look at some of his pictures.
Another know-it-all politico babbling and spewing, I presume, as is typical among politicos the world over.
Kudos to the politician scum vermin filth enemies of the non-politicos (is my bias showing?) who refer to informed, educated others to assist their decision-making process(es) BUT… how many politicians actually DO refer to those with knowledge and are not merely “fronts” for those with vested interests (usually financial) who wand/do influence law/rule/statute/etc makers?
Decisions do need to be made. Toes usually end up being stepped upon. Sadly, it appears that optimal decisions are shunted aside to maximize profits for the entrenched powered and wealthiest elites while what is best for the “nothing” masses and the geo-political unit as a whole too often receives short shrift.
An addendum for the “gear heads” in the crowd.
Despite my Old Cootness my nonpareil well-honed safe driving skills include knowing when to exceed the speed limit (not often) such as to minimize the time in the usually “faster lanes” of a multi-lane highway such as when passing a semi-truck (for personal safety, common sense and other sundry reasons).
I lose my gruntleness when the brain-dead driving droids with their auto speed controls set pull out to pass the semi and end up blocking a lane since it is, for some reason, unfathomable to them to either speed up or slow down a bit and get in front of or behind the truck and free the lane…… especially when the highway has only two lanes.
Yes, dearly beloved, back when I was slogging down the super slab, spending a minimum of 70 hours weekly making allowances for a horde of 4-wheelers intent upon committing suicide under my death-dealing wheels, there were times I slowed down just to allow one of the too many brain-dead the opportunity to allow them to re-enter the right-hand lane and allow the steadily increasing blocked fast-lane traffic to proceed.
Even doing that, at times, still delayed traffic as the most severely brain-dead buffoons remained in the fast lane apparently until it was time for them to exit the highway/freeway/whatever.
Safest driving is a state-of-mind, an attitude.
And I fear that some of the responses to some of my past posts indicate to me some possible quick assumptions about me or faulty reasoning or a state of general “gear headedness” or self-centeredness that so permeates modern society, in my Disgruntled Old Coot opinion.
Still, the vast majority of the time I traverse the pavement at the posted speed limit.
I wonder if my abilities and driving attitudes “back in the day” when I wended my way through a horde of 4-wheelers exhibiting such a horrendous amount of “driving idiocy” (conversely, the obviously aware, alert, skillful drivers were greatly appreciated!!!) whose lives were either spared or were saved from horrendous or less injury, due to my driving attitude/ability were even aware of how close they came to tragedy or were appreciative I DID possess and follow the safety “attitude”?
Another way to convey my utterance……
How many lousy dangerous drivers are even aware of bad they are?
India has many problems. Diesel SUVs are probably not in the top 10, or 20.
The political psychopath Jairam Ramesh is criminal and needs to be removed from civil society…Obviously (To those who did not go to public school)
Never cared for SUVs myself and they eventually will die out when gas gets too expensive , but designing something like that oversized Tonka Toy should be criminal .
Global laming IS real.
Stuff like this is why China always have, and always will kick Indian backside. Shame, really.
Talk about rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic – during my two weeks in (the real) India, I saw very few shiny diesel SUVs – a dozen maybe? I was, however, fortunate enough to witness hundreds, or probably thousands, of ancient, rattle-trap cabover cargo trucks, each belching clouds of black, acrid smoke – and due to ill health, the vast majority seemed unable to go beyond 25mph. Tens of thousands of gasping, ill-running lorrys traveling across the country, taking five times as long as they should, and using half of their gas to produce constant, elaborate honk tones – and the problem is diesel SUVs?
Horn OK please indeed.
Easy fix: Run those Diesels off used cooking oil or BioDiesel. Problem solved.
I’m inclined to classify Jairam Ramesh’s remarks as posturing and temporizing; India is a major offender on the international environmentalist blacklist, and I suspect he is part of the Indian government’s effort to pretend to be concerned about global warming. By selecting SUVs as a target he is doing it in a way that actually points fingers back at the developed nations, which have far more of these vehicles than India does.
Like an Indian lorry, his real job is blowing smoke and making noise.
somebody please ask MR jairam Ramesh
why the hell there is always a huge queue of trucks at the border of every state causing massive traffic jams.
on a 20 kms signal free section in delhi right after midnight the trucks clog it up completely (to be noted that more than 8 major hospitals of the city fall on that route, because the trucks are waiting to pay toll to enter the state of Uttar Pradesh from delhi.
and i sometimes wonder that why doesnt india has same emission norms in the entire country
and do the trucks fall under this.
It is encouraging, in a way, to see that the USA has no monopoly on blowhard global warming politicians. Would be interesting to know the means of transportation the good minister uses on a daily basis.