Maruti Suzuki’s advertising catchline “kitna deti hai” and “petrol khatam hi nahin hunda” were instant hits, distilling the Indian motorist’s obsession with fuel efficiency into a pithy catchline. The country’s largest carmaker was hardly breaking new ground: decades earlier, Hero Honda had struck a similar chord with its “fill it, shut it, forget it” campaign, highlighting the efficiency of its four-stroke engines and buttressing the notion that thrift at the pump was the ultimate measure of automotive value.
That sentiment has proved remarkably resilient, even as India’s car market has upshifted to premium offerings with buyers looking to combine mobility with aspirational pursuits. Despite that, the calculus of mileage still remains a key hard sell and the promise of frugality continues to endure in a nation where mobility is expanding, but growth in disposable incomes remain patchy.
Ahead of schedule
That is where the government’s new ethanol blending programme is playing spoilsport. Last year, India fully transitioned to 20% ethanol blending in petrol — five years ahead of the original target of 2030. E20 fuel — 80% petrol and 20% ethanol — is now the standard petrol variant available nationwide.
So, essentially, within three years, the average ethanol blending level in petrol doubled from the earlier 10% to 20% (this was originally slated to happen over eight years). For older vehicles and those certified for E10 petrol — 90 parts petrol and 10 parts ethanol — this transition came about rather quickly, without sufficient warnings of the consumer-end pitfalls. The experience left motorists, especially those owning older cars and two-wheelers, feeling somewhat short-changed.
Now, there are three problems with using a higher ethanol blend in petrol for engines not designed for these blends:
One, there is a substantial drop in fuel economy depending on when the car was manufactured.
Second, filling E20 fuel in internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles, especially older ones, could see some damage to parts owing to factors like corrosion, , given ethanol’s hygroscopic nature that promotes water uptake (hygroscopy refers to the property of a substance to attract and hold water molecules from the surrounding environment, either through absorption or adsorption).
Third, vehicle owners in India currently do not have an option to choose different fuels at the petrol pump, unlike their counterparts in Brazil where customers are presented with a choice of fuels with differential pricing and under Brazilian law, there has to be a pricing discount for higher ethanol blends.
Indian vehicle owners did not receive blended fuel at a cheaper cost. But this comes at the cost of lower mileage and worries about damage in older vehicles — a cost that is forced down the throat of the motorists. Also, regular ICE cars running on higher ethanol blends, alongside the drop in mileage, are harder to start on winter mornings because ethanol burns at a higher temperature than petrol.
While a fuel with 10 per cent ethanol (E10) made little difference to a car’s performance, anything above that is said to impact operations. And the worsening of the performance does not exactly progress in a linear fashion as the blending levels keep increasing. The government has a plan to go further up from E20, and that is worrying customers given their experience with the E10 to E20 transition.
The chemistry issue
So, what really is the core problem? Chemically, the proposition of ethanol blending doesn’t appear to be so bad. Ethanol is what is called a carbon chain two, that is C2H5OH, whereas petrol being used at the pumps is somewhere much higher in the range in terms of the carbon content — from between C8 and C12. So, for every molecule of petrol burnt versus every molecule of ethanol burnt, the carbon dioxide levels will be necessarily lesser as the ethanol blend increases.
Secondly, ethanol also has a very high octane number, so it can result in a cleaner burn inside an internal combustion engine than pure petrol. It is a fact that ethanol’s exceptionally high-octane number (approximately 108 RON, or Research Octane Number) has made it a preferred fuel component for high-performance ICEs.
Ethanol and ethanol-based fuels have historically been used in sports cars because of their superior anti-knock characteristics, better power potential and cooling effect stemming from their high latent heat of vaporisation. Most turbocharged and high-compression engines worldwide do rely on ethanol blends to realise higher performance, while simultaneously reducing emissions.
Multiple carmakers in India told The Indian Express that given the higher RON, they can now begin working on engines with higher compression ratios to extract the maximum mileage out of higher ethanol blends. But that is all for the future. On its part, the government continues to maintain that the roll-out of higher ethanol-petrol blends will only be done after proper testing and consultations.
Also, it is the United Progressive Alliance government (2004-14) that had originally notified in its first National Policy on Biofuels in 2009 an indicative target of 20% ethanol blending in petrol by 2017, which got pushed back for a number of reasons. Also, a scientific study on “Assessing the effect of E10 on the existing vehicles”, was undertaken in the year 2009-10, by Indian Oil, Pune-based Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI), and industry lobby group SIAM, which suggested that the shift was operationally feasible.
But ethanol has lower calorific value than petrol, which means something like 30% less mileage. The mileage issue continues to be a headache for motorists, especially as the government progresses to blends higher than E20.
Then there is the concern over vehicular part damage in older cars owing to factors like corrosion, in light of ethanol’s hygroscopic nature, but much that seems to be overblown. A top carmaker had initially planned to launch a kit in the market for older cars to effectively refurbish vulnerable rubber and plastic parts and prevent material damage, but that plan now, at least for the record, seems to have been put off and is “only being done for internal testing and R&D purposes”.
There are, however, multiple claims by vehicle owners of fuel pump issues and other problems. On its part, the government contends that most clips doing the rounds claiming engine damage “appear to rely on unverified claims, selective presentation of facts and click-bait headlines designed primarily to generate online viewership”.
Material damage
While the E20 introduction was clearly rushed, given that the deadline was actually advanced by this administration, the government did depute the ARAI to conduct a study on the impact of E20 fuel on the materials used in fuel-system components. An evaluation of 8 metals, 6 elastomers, and 4 plastics used in various fuel-system components was conducted through “systematic exercise of laboratory immersion” and the study was conducted with E20 as test fuel and commercial petrol (Bharat Stage IV emission standards) as a baseline fuel (E10) for comparative assessment.
Impact of E20 on metals was evaluated through calculation of corrosion rates in mm/year based on data obtained for change in mass post-immersion in fuels, an official said. Also, impact of elastomers and plastics was evaluated through observed changes in properties like mass, volume, tensile strength, elongation, impact strength, and hardness.
The ARAI study concluded that the impact of E20 on metals tested “was found to be insignificant based on the corrosion rates”, with polychloroprene and fluoroelastomer found to perform “similar or better in most of the properties with E20” and the impact of E20 on “tensile strength and volume change properties” was found to be more than commercial petrol.
Now, ARAI is a government body, and some of its predictions, including the fuel efficiency ratings that it offers “under standard test conditions”, are vastly different in real life driving conditions.
As far as vehicle degradation goes, manufacturers, on record, say they have not encountered any major issues with the E20 transition. Privately though, they admit to this being a concern when the blending levels increase further, particularly for older cars and two-wheelers. Plus, the knock on fuel economy is absolutely real. And as fuel blends increase, this is only going to get worse.
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