Do you know there are not only Internal Combustion Engine vehicles and Electric Vehicles? There is also another type of vehicle that runs on a blend of both Electric and other conventional fuel those are called hybrid vehicles. Let’s start with bookish type definition of hybrid vehicles.
What is a Hybrid Vehicle?
A vehicle that powered by any two types distinct power sources like Petrol – CNG, Petrol – LPG etc. are called Hybrid Vehicle. But here we will be talking about Hybrid – electric car because in today’s day and age governments are focusing more on carbon emission rather than mileage of the car.
Types of Hybrid Vehicles:
There are 3 types of Hybrid Vehicles. They are:
1. Mild – Hybrid:
This type of vehicles has an electric starter motor with a small rechargeable battery. The battery gets it charging from the engine power and regenerative breaking. The electric motor helps in initial acceleration by giving the torque boost. For these reasons these car gives better mileage than normal Internal Combustion Engines.
2. Strong – Hybrid:
In these types of vehicles the Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) gets attached with a generator that makes electricity. This electricity gives the power to a motor that directly gives the power to the wheels. The engine not only gives the power to the motors but also in the higher speed the engine works along with the motors and give some additional power to the wheels.
3. Plug–In Hybrid:
These types of vehicles are same as strong – hybrid vehicles but here we are able to charge the battery externally and also, we are able to drive the vehicle on pure EV mode with very less range.
In this blog we will focus only on last two type of hybrid vehicles.
Let’s take a look on the history of hybrid vehicles:
In the year 1889 William H. Patton designed 1st gasoline electric hybrid rail car but the term hybrid was not there. He not only designed but also patented the design under his name on 25th February 1889. The design was a success for rail engines but that design doesn’t work for street cars.
Almost after 10 decades around 1990s the hybrid cars again came into news. Then in 1997 Japanese car manufacturer, Toyota launched their 1st hybrid – electric car named ‘Prius’.
After 2 years, in 1999 another Japanese car manufacturer, Honda launched their 1st hybrid – electric car in US and Japan market named ‘Insight’.
In the year 2000 Toyota launched ‘Prius’ in international markets like UK, US and rest of the world. Toyota ‘Prius’ was the 1st mass production hybrid car. Till 2010 Toyota sold almost 1.6 million units of this car.
Now, the bigest question you may have that is:
“In 1990s the emission norms were not that hard then why Japanese car manufacturers needed develop the hybrid technology?”
Well, there are two main reasons:
In 1990s Japan was undergoing financial recession due to economy asset price bubble collapse. The recession was so bad that lasted for almost a decade from 1991 – 2002. In this time Japan’s economy shrank up-to 1 trillion $. Due to all of these Japanese car manufacturers faced a huge competition from Chinese & Korean car brands. To counter the competition Japanese car manufacturers planned to shift towards hybrid technology. This was the 1st reason.
The second reason, just like India, Japan’s economy was also foreign crude oil dependent. In 1990 due to Kuwait’s invasion on Iraq the price of crude oil goes up from 17 $/ Barrel to 36 $/ Barrel.
The financial recession & the price hike forced Japanese car manufacturers to focus on hybrid technology. And because of the domestic need they got the early mover advantage.
Scenario of Hybrid Vehicles in India:
Indian car manufacturers are currently focusing on EVs as an alternative of ICE vehicles. Indian government is also promoting the EVs by reducing the GST on EVs.
But currently India doesn’t have the infrastructure to focus only EVs as an alternative. The former CEO and current chairman of Maruti Suzuki Mr. R.C. Bhargava also said the same thing and he clearly disagreed to adopt western trend blindly.
Not only that, Mr. R.C. Bhargava also reveled some amazing facts about Indian Automobile Market. As per Mr. R.C. Bhargava, the car priced under ₹ 7.5 lakhs will continue to grow for a long time. For this Maruti Suzuki requested government to incentivise alternative technologies other than EV.
Now, you may ask why only on small cars?
Mr. R.C. Bhargava also said that around 200 million two-wheeler owners shelved their plan to upgrade into four-wheeler. But they are in dilemma what they will choose. If they buy now, and choose normal Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) car but to achieve the ambitious goal of clean mobility and 2070 emission target India is changing the emission norms very fast. On the other hand If they want to go for the EV the budget will not permit them to do that.
An EV’s price is almost double than a normal Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) variant where as a hybrid vehicle’s price is only 3-4 lakhs above than its Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) variant. Now if government reduces the GST on hybrid cars the cars will be more affordable.
In FY 22 only 115,032 hybrid cars sold in India which is only 4.2% of total passenger vehicles sells. Nomura Research Institute predicted that by the FY 25 the sell of hybrid vehicles will be doubled.
Japanese car manufacturers like Maruti Suzuki, Toyota & Honda pitched Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) to reduce the GST on hybrid vehicles but Indian car manufacturers like TATA & Mahindra opposed it. As per the result SIAM not suggested this at the time of budgeting.
An EV’s price is almost double than a normal Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) variant where as a hybrid vehicle’s price is only 3-4 lakhs above than its Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) variant. Now if government reduces the GST on hybrid cars the cars will be more affordable.
In FY 22 only 115,032 hybrid cars sold in India which is only 4.2% of total passenger vehicles sells. Nomura Research Institute predicted that by the FY 25 the sell of hybrid vehicles will be doubled.
Japanese car manufacturers like Maruti Suzuki, Toyota & Honda pitched Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) to reduce the GST on hybrid vehicles but Indian car manufacturers like TATA & Mahindra opposed it. As per the result SIAM not suggested this at the time of budgeting.
Our views on Hybrid vehicles in India:
Hybrid vehicles could be a great bridge between the ICE cars & pure EVs. But due to lack of policy support and incentives by Indian government, Japanese car manufacturers has failed to popularise the hybrid technology.
EVs are great too but when more than 50% of India’s electricity comes from fossil fuel then hybrid vehicles are making their position stronger. More over that the flexi fuel – hybrid vehicles can be a great alternative too.
If we see the whole scenario from the business perspective, we can clearly say that Tata & Mahindra are trying to grab the early mover advantage in the EV section. Which Japanese car manufacturers got in the hybrid section that to in 1990s.
Share your thoughts in the comments.
