India is fastly losing the race to become asian hub for manufacturing eco friendly cars, but, interestingly we are losing the battle not to china or russia but to Thailand. When world Majors like Toyota and Honda are requesting Indian Government to relax the duty structure(116% for any CBUs) for hybrid vehicles to promote eco-friendly technology in the country, Government of Thailand has offered tax breaks to companies that will produce hybrid vehicles. Suzuki plans to produce 138,000 environmentally friendly vehicles annually in Thailand with an investment of 9.5 billion baht ($282 million) while fellow Japanese automaker Nissan plans the annual production of 120,000 units after spending 5.5 billion baht($184million). Honda Motor Co. has already received tax incentives for its plan to build a 6.7 billion baht ($222 million) eco-car production facility. Toyota and Mitsubishi have also claimed investment incentives to produce green vehicles from the Thai Board of Investment. What makes the thing much worser for india is its homegrown Tata Motors has also decided to make Thailand a regional hub for eco-cars. Altogether, interest shown by at least seven foreign automobile manufacturers in producing eco-cars will enable Thailand to export not less than 700,000 eco-cars. If this investments are done Thailand will become one of the world’s top 10 car producers and exporters. The country now ranks 15th in the world auto market. Thailand is already the world’s second-largest pickup market after the United States and has become a major pickup truck hub for global automakers. Tata Motos intends to produce 35,000 pickups from 2008 in Thailand.
To qualify for the sops these manufacturers have to export at least 100,000 vehicles a year in addition the engine size of eco-cars must not exceed 1,300 cubic centimeters if they use gasoline and is limited to 1,400 cubic centimeters if they are diesel-powered. Also, they must not consume more than one 1 liter of fuel for every 20 kilometers and create no more than 120 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometer.
Not just the higher duty structure hampers the global makers to roll out hybrid vehicles in India but also lack of guidance. While Honda is serious in bringing the civic hybrid to India, Honda realised that there was no regulation in place to permit the model to run on Indian roads. Honda is currently working with the Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI) to create one. India which already lost the battle to china! should wake up this time atleast