Cars might soon become expensive because of this reason

3 months ago | 43 Views

Every year cars in India get expensive because of the price hike for various reasons. One of the major reasons for the price increase is the emission norms. India's energy efficiency and conservation agency wants automakers to cut carbon emissions by a third over the next three years or face penalties under the third iteration of corporate average fuel efficiency norms (CAFE) by the bureau of energy efficiency (BEE).

The last step that was taken by India's energy efficiency and conservation agency was the Bharat Stage 6. It came into effect in April 2020 and then the Bharat Stage 6 RDE came into effect in April 2023 which basically measures emissions in realtime.

The next stage in this will be the CAFE 3 and CAFE 4 emission norms that are even stricter. CAFE 3 norms will come into effect from April 2027 and the bureau of energy efficiency has proposed 91.7 gm CO2/km and 70 gm CO2/km in CAFE 3 and CAFE 4. The bureau of energy efficiency has asked industry stakeholders to submit their comments by the first week of July after which final guidelines will be notified.

An industry executive told Economic Times, “The challenge is not only to develop a vehicle which meets the stringent CAFE 3 and CAFE 4 norms, but also to price it such that there are buyers for them. You can make a low emission vehicle but if it is not priced affordably, there will be no takers and no benefit. It will impact the CAFE score of the company."

As per the proposal, if the average fuel efficiency of the cars exceeds by up to 0.2 litres per 100 km, the penalty is ₹25,000 per vehicle. In case, it exceeds this, the penalty is ₹50,000 per vehicle. CAFE norms are applied to all the vehicles that an automaker is selling. Manufacturers also have to pay penalties in case they end up missing the deadline.

A second senior industry executive said as per the outlet, "While the government has agreed to extend to five years the transition to CAFE 4, the targets outlined are tough. Not only would carmakers have to reduce carbon emissions and fuel consumption for the entire fleet in the next three years, these parameters will also be measured as per WLTP."