Exclusive: Flex-fuel hybrids cleaner than EVs; can help reduce winter North India pollution: Toyota India

India’s pilot project for flex-fuel hybrid electric vehicles (FFV-SHEVs) was launched by Nitin Gadkari, Union Minister of Road Transport and Highways of India. The project is being handled by Toyota, which is using a Corolla Altis Hybrid in Brazilian spec for the purpose. The car in discussion here features a strong hybrid system from Toyota and can run on various grades of Ethanol-blended petrol, going up to 100 % Ethanol also.
India presently has a 10% doping ratio of ethanol in petrol and this has helped save money and cut down emissions. This number is slated to go upto 20% by 2025 as the government continues to push for flex-fuels. Nitin Gadkari, Minister of Road Transport and Highways of India, has been particularly vocal about the multi-pronged benefits of adopting flex-fuels and there seem to be good reasons for it.
With the 10% Ethanol blended fuel that we get right now, India was able to save/replace 26 million barrels of petrol. In the last eight years, Ethanol blending has resulted in savings of Rs 41,500 crore. In 2020-21 alone, a saving of Rs 10,000 crore was achieved due to Ethanol blending.
In order to get a better understanding of Toyota’s objectives behind this pilot programme, we spoke to Vikram Gulati, Country Head and Senior Vice-President, Toyota Kirloskar Motor. He told us that as India progresses towards E20 (20% Ethanol) blending, we can expect our fuel-savings to go up Rs 30,000 crore per year. In barrel numbers, the savings would be about 86 million barrels in 2024-25.

Speaking about the environmental benefits of using flex-fuels, he said that Ethanol blending in the last eight years has resulted in Greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction of 27 lakh metric tonnes. With E20 blending, this figure is expected to go up to 10 million Metric tonnes a year. Even the 2.5 PM emissions can come down by up to 14% compared to petrol.
Elaborating further on the environmental benefits, Gulati said that “Ethanol is a carbon neutral fuel and that is a huge positive because it gives you the lowest carbon emissions on a well-to-wheel basis. This is the correct way for calculating the impact on the environment, for instance, the carbon emissions for this flex-fuel Corolla are around 29 grams per kilometre. Just to give you a benchmark, an EV emits somewhere around 70-80 grams of carbon emissions per km.”
It should be noted that E10 and E20 will not require existing vehicles to undergo any modifications, however, going upwards will require changes to the electronics, hoses and a few other parts in a car. Gulati said that while the cost isn’t big, it isn’t ignorable either but when you take into account the large number of vehicles in India and divide the development costs of the carmaker accordingly, the per car cost wouldn’t be very high. “In addition, higher blends such as E85 provide improved torque and power although there might be a drop in fuel-efficiency of around seven percent, going all the way up to 30% in some cases. In order to offset this loss, we have paired flex-fuel with our strong hybrid system. This combination not only enhances fuel-efficiency but also lowers emissions significantly compared to a standard E85 petrol only vehicle.”

When asked about benefits ranging beyond carmakers and the sources to make Ethanol apart from Sugarcane, Gulati said, “In India, we are already seeing second-generation plants under construction. These units will be producing ethanol from waste. One plant coming up in Panipat will be capable of producing huge amounts of ethanol from ‘parali’ or stubble, which is a major source of pollution in the country as farmers burn it after the harvesting season. So from being a source of pollution the stubble will turn into an additional revenue source for the farmers. One plant is coming by February 2023 and 11 others are planned. Out of the 26 million tonnes of stubble accumulated in the country every year, around 24-25 million tonnes will be processed in these plants.”
While the projections for flex-fuels seem quite encouraging, one must keep in mind that the government and many carmakers are pushing EVs quite strongly. In such a scenario, there could be a possibility that flex-fuels might not find enough takers in times to come if EVs take off at a blazing pace. Responding to this, Gulati said, “We sell about 3.5 million cars per year currently and if we take 2 percent vehicles off that, the numbercomes to 70,000 vehicles that can run on an ethanol blend. Compared to market size projections of 2030, which will be around 8 million cars and even with the ambitious 30 percent electrification, we will still be selling 1.5x or 1.8x fossil-powered cars than what we are today. So adoption of FFV can help us turn 80-90 percent of those ICE vehicles into more environmentally-friendly ones.”

While electric vehicles (EV) are a straight-forward solution for many European countries, India can’t simply shift from petrol/ diesel to EVs over the next few years. That said, as the second most populous country in the world, we also cannot shrug the responsibility to lower emissions. The solution, hence, for India might not be one technology but a combination of technologies involving various fuel types.
Clearly, Toyota has big plans for flex-fuels paired to its strong hybrid system. On paper, numbers and reasons seem to be in favour of the blended technology. However, it’ll be interesting to see how the pilot project by Toyota turns out to be and at the same time also watch out for our first-drive review of the Toyota flex-fuel strong hybrid car tomorrow.
Let us know your thoughts on the potential for flex-fuels combined with a hybrid and if you would buy such a vehicle and how much more would you be willing to pay for it.