What next?
With pretty much most small diesel cars snapped out of existence by 2020, what will the consumers be able to get instead? Small diesel cars have been perfect for those daily stop and go traffic conditions that one faces inevitably. The petrol counterparts are just not that efficient in traffic. The absence of small diesel engines will be felt, especially in these soaring oil prices. The main alternatives as of now are electric and CNG.
CNG may seem like a good alternative, but the main problem is the scale. The volume of sales that diesel cars see, CNG cannot match those numbers as of now. There is also less adaptation of CNG in the filling stations that are littered around India.
The other option is electric. This is an amazing replacement for diesel cars as they are efficient and cheap to maintain. But one glance at the price tag of an electric vehicle with a respectable range tells you why this cannot fill the vacuum that would be created by the absence of these cars. Electric could be the future! But by 2020? That is too soon of a deadline for electric cars to become commercialised in India at our current rate of development. Petrol Hybrids, which are green(er) and efficient seem to be the best alternative we have, as of now.
