India's "People's Car" - great for Joe Public, disaster for the environment

[newbie]

The introduction of a very cheap, low powered car in this country could have a dramatic effect on our own roads. The other manufacturers will be forced to compete, hopefully lowering both emissions and acceleration/speed as well as allowing the roads to support rather more tiny cars than the huge things that have been popular recently.

As well as the enormous possibilities for improving the quality of life of countless Indians and others, this looks like a development that could make massive changes.

 

[Fruitloop]

To be honest there are three choices.

1: If every motherfucker on the planet gets to zoom around in their own little gas-guzzler then the climate will fall the fuck over and lots of people will die in a wide variety of unpleasant ways as a result.

2: If you keep capitalism then the only lever you have to motivate people is the financial one, which unfortunately means that that the well-off will be much less inconvenienced by any mitigatory action that you might take. Lots of money will buy them out of it, because the nature of our society is that money buys you out of most things provided you have enough of it.

3: Dump capitalism and its evil twin bourgeois individualism and replace it with something that adjudicates more fairly between people's desires, available labour and resources, and externalities like atmospheric composition and its effect on climate.

So far we are avoiding actively choosing either 2 or 3, so we are getting the default option which is 1.

 

[hipipol]

Oh my

The engine is just over 600 ccs, is modern and efficient. Look here. Also these cars will replace two wheelers, often older Honda Kinetic/Bajaj Piaggio two strokes scooters on which the whole family ride - the overloaded inefficient old engines will kick out much more crap
The three wheeled autorickshaw (primarily a Bajaj product I believe), with its 320cc two stroke motor is a worse culprit than anything this car will ever do.
It will NOT mean the demise of Indias railways - Konkan Railway is a good example of India continuing to invest in rail infrastructure and achieveing world class levels of engineering to boot.
IF the cops actually enforced the laws ref permitted emissions of commercial vehicles there would be MUCH less probs with Indias air quality and carbon emmissions - "Sound Horn" - I might do if I'd been able to see this request thru the cloud of crap.
This car is a good thing which, by reducing two wheeler and autorickshaw use will REDUCE emmissions. (It may even reduce the no of Padmini cabs on the road- oh Bless - who are fuel inefficient and spew shite well beyond belief out of such small beasts!!!!)
PS Maruti is the biggest selling car brand in India, and Garfs right, its an Isuzu motor in the Hindustani Motors Ambassador

 

[littlebabyjesus]

The affluent piss me off with their conversion to environmental issues. It's OK for them - they just pay the congestion tax, they'll just stump up the frequent flyer tax, they carry on doing what they've always done, but salve their consciences with carbon offset fancy accountancy tricks. It's the people who didn't ever fly frequently who'll be expected to abstain, the people who have never done the school run in 4x4s who'll be told not to ruin the planet, as always, when the party's over those who weren't invited will be footing the bill.

Very well put.

 

[untethered]

And no one's 'blaming' anyone.

Surely Jeremy Clarkson should bear at least some of the responsibility?

 

[untethered]

The introduction of a very cheap, low powered car in this country could have a dramatic effect on our own roads.

What, like more traffic, more congestion, longer journeys and more total emissions?

 

[Belushi]

The three wheeled autorickshaw (primarily a Bajaj product I believe), with its 320cc two stroke motor is a worse culprit than anything this car will ever do.

In some cities (Ahmedabad etc) they've all been switched to cleaner fuels.

It will NOT mean the demise of Indias railways - Konkan Railway is a good example of India continuing to invest in rail infrastructure and achieveing world class levels of engineering to boot.

I suspect the explosion of budget airlines may do greater damage to the railways than the car will.

 

[Dr Jon]

In some cities (Ahmedabad etc) they've all been switched to cleaner fuels.

What? You mean CNG? Yeah cleaner that the dirty old 2-stroke, but still a major source of pollution.

I suspect the explosion of budget airlines may do greater damage to the railways than the car will.

Well said. The expansion of low cost air travel within India is truly staggering.

The three wheeled autorickshaw (primarily a Bajaj product I believe), with its 320cc two stroke motor is a worse culprit than anything this car will ever do

People are saying that the nano could kill off the conventional auto.

link

 

[newbie]

What, like more traffic, more congestion, longer journeys and more total emissions?

possibly, hopefully not, not with such tiny engines, possibly.

 

[Bob_the_lost]

People are saying that the nano could kill off the conventional auto.

Is that a bad thing?

Isn't this more like the EEE PC of motoring? Small and pointless to most but dead cheap, functional and did we mention dirt cheap?

 

[Dr Jon]

Is that a bad thing?

It is for makers of the conventional auto...

 

[parallelepipete]

The affluent piss me off with their conversion to environmental issues. It's OK for them - they just pay the congestion tax, they'll just stump up the frequent flyer tax, they carry on doing what they've always done, but salve their consciences with carbon offset fancy accountancy tricks. It's the people who didn't ever fly frequently who'll be expected to abstain, the people who have never done the school run in 4x4s who'll be told not to ruin the planet, as always, when the party's over those who weren't invited will be footing the bill.

I was going to say that the irony isn't lost on low-GDP countries - but then it probably will be, as they'll be too busy picking up the pieces to care about the hilarious global situational comedy of it all.

Our so-called environmental leadership amounts to saying, "Our scientists have shown that our GHG emissions have already committed us to significant ecological disruption, but we're so addicted to oil that, er, could you help us out by not using any at all? We'll even pay you bribes - look at this shiny Clean Development Mechanism!"

On the other hand, it's the old tu quoque fallacy. Just because we've screwed up on ecological sustainability doesn't mean that everyone else should try to screw up as well. I can only apologise to anyone in India (or China) that our politicians and people have set such a bad example, but it doesn't change the fact that simply producing a smaller car is not part of the solution. Indian cities are generally high-density, which should make it easy for public transport to flourish. But adding a few million more cars to the streets, while government officials fail to provide priority lanes for buses, ensure that public transport reaches poorer areas, or subsidise it so that residents of those areas can use it (for free if necessary - India has nuclear weapons and an independent space programme, so I'm sure the money is there), will just increase congestion, emissions, and social inequality all at once.

But then there are plenty of Indians already saying that without us putting our hypocritical oar in.

 

[Dr Jon]

Tata's latest contribution to ecological disaster:

Sumo Grande

 

[TAE]

What a missed opportunity that this car couldn't have been made eco-friendly.

Agreed, but it would obviously have been even better if all our cars were eco-friendly.

Perhaps this car will show 'the west' that our lifestyle is simply not maintainable.

 

[stowpirate]

The affluent piss me off with their conversion to environmental issues. It's OK for them - they just pay the congestion tax, they'll just stump up the frequent flyer tax, they carry on doing what they've always done, but salve their consciences with carbon offset fancy accountancy tricks. It's the people who didn't ever fly frequently who'll be expected to abstain, the people who have never done the school run in 4x4s who'll be told not to ruin the planet, as always, when the party's over those who weren't invited will be footing the bill.

Thats always been true - tax the poor and then for for good measure stamp on them! Carbon tax should be based on ability to pay - every individual should have an equal burden based on circumstances - maybe a form of means testing so that everything is priced on a sliding scale. I think there is a load of bullshit about environmental issues in circulation and only certain areas so far have been singled out for change.

 

[david dissadent]

A sobering over veiw on Indias choice of the car over public transport and a rather neat rejoinder to anyone who feels pollution to be a middle class concern.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/JC07Df02.html