The environmental impact of India’s Nano car

The environmental impact of India’s Nano car

It may be the world’s cheapest car, but is this the direction that India’s promising engineering industry should be taking?

Tata Motors this week launched the Tata Nano, a compact, shoe-boxy sort of car, with four tiny wheels and one wing mirror.

Environmentalists are already crying murder, saying that this will just encourage more pollution and congestion in a nation that is already suffering severely from both. So I thought I would have a quick look at how things stack up.

The Tata Nano will meet European emissions standards on exhaust. If you want to see details, check out the Euro IV line in this table. Bear in mind that exhaust emissions standards regulate the particles that make up smog, not emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (which the EU does not currently regulate, although it’s trying).

The numbers come out in favour of the Tata Nano. Euro IV standards are more stringent than those in place for the motorcycles and scooters, which make up a big chunk of India’s motorised traffic.

For instance, according to the Indian Federation of Automobile Dealers Association and the Society for Indian Automobile Manufacturers, the 2005 standards for two-wheelers limited carbon monoxide, hydrocarbon, and NOx emissions to 1.5 g/km travelled – compare that to just 0.5 g/km (carbon monoxide) and 0.3 g/km (hydrocarbon and NOx) under Euro IV.

But look at fuel efficiency and the balance is flipped. Tata’s Nano travels 21 km for every litre of fuel it is fed, compared to up to 80 km/l you could achieve with a two-wheeler. That means not only a larger bill for the owner, but also more CO₂ chucked into the atmosphere.

So, the Nano will bring less ground-level pollution but more greenhouse gases. Ideally, you would want to see less of both (which is for instance what the Vikram electric 3-wheeler, pictured left, offered).

Still, maybe this is the first of a new wave of ingenious new car models to be produced in India. Given the nation’s considerable engineering workforce, and the growing demand for green transportation, it could be lucrative for Indian companies to start shifting their attentions to supplying the world with new environmentally friendly forms of transportation.

Tata is a massive company, but so far its only environmental line of business is a joint venture in solar energy with BP. Time for a change?

Catherine Brahic, online environment reproter.