As India puts more of the emissions-cutting biofuel ethanol in its petrol, consumers complain it damages their engines.
The government’s fast-expanding ethanol programme aims to cut costly oil imports by blending petrol with ethanol, a biofuel derived from agricultural produce or organic waste that burns more cleanly than traditional gasoline.
India last month hit its target of reaching a 20% ethanol mix in petrol, known as E20 petrol, five years ahead of schedule.
But car reviewer Amit Khare, who reaches 15 million people every month across social media platforms, including YouTube, Meta and Instagram, criticised the fuel.
“Ethanol is a dry and corrosive fuel,” Khare told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
“It can damage several parts involved in supplying fuel to the engines,” he said. “Neither the government nor the petrol pumps in the country are informing users about all these issues … Consumers are being kept in dark.”
Thousands of worried drivers shared their fears in comments on a video he posted on the issue late last month.
Consumers are demanding the right to choose what they put in their cars, filling social media with complaints of lower fuel efficiency, damage to older engines and the ensuing costly repairs.
Punjab-based car critic Sunderdeep Singh said the government should make it mandatory for petrol stations to sell different blends and clearly colour-code them.
“Most consumers do not know how much ethanol is mixed in the petrol they are buying,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
The government said on Monday concerns over E20 fuel were unfounded. The Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas said the criticism lacked “technical foundation” and said its own reports found no major engine damage or performance loss.
The government admitted mileage might dip slightly, by between 1% and 2% in newer cars and by up to 6% in older ones, but said this could be managed with routine servicing.
Vehicle owners responded swiftly, sharing mileage numbers online and accusing the government of hiding the truth.
Khare said he tested an E20-compliant car for two months and saw a mileage drop of between 5% and 6%.
There is no publicly available data on how many of the millions of cars and motorbikes sold before 2023 are compliant with E20 fuel, but Khare estimates most of them are not.
Biofuels are a key part of the Indian government’s plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions and the cost of importing oil.
The policy saved India about 1.06 trillion rupees ($12.09 billion) in crude oil import costs between 2014 and 2024, according to government data, and helped to avoid 54.4 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions in the same decade.
This is roughly the equivalent of the emissions from 12 million gasoline-powered cars a year, according to a calculator from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
But the gains come with trade-offs. India has ramped up ethanol production by diverting crops like sugarcane, maize and rice to make fuel, reducing the availability of grains for people and cattle, and shifting land away from food…
Disclaimer
We strive to uphold the highest ethical standards in all of our reporting and coverage. We 5guruayurveda.com want to be transparent with our readers about any potential conflicts of interest that may arise in our work. It’s possible that some of the investors we feature may have connections to other businesses, including competitors or companies we write about. However, we want to assure our readers that this will not have any impact on the integrity or impartiality of our reporting. We are committed to delivering accurate, unbiased news and information to our audience, and we will continue to uphold our ethics and principles in all of our work. Thank you for your trust and support.
Website Upgradation is going on. For any glitch kindly connect at 5guruayurveda.com
