ICCK

“It’s still work-in-progress, and we have yet to take a final call. There will be a lot of stakeholder consultations cutting across various ministries. The industry has managed to bring up the score from 130 gm/km to 115-116 now which is a great progress. Having said that, one can’t say they were almost there, hence we are carefully looking into it,” said a government official and one of the persons cited above.

The public disclosure of last year’s CAFÉ score has been delayed for more than 2-3 months as the filing of individual scores by automakers in a specified format was behind schedule. Automakers submitted their CAFÉ scores in the desired format only a few days ago to the government’s testing agency --- ICAT (International Centre of Automotive Technology), which forwarded it to the MoRTH.

At 95gms CO2/km, fuel economy standards in Europe are stricter than India’s 113, said Anumita Roychowdhury, executive director at New Delhi-based think-tank Centre for Science and Environment.

The tighter standards in Europe have enabled more rapid transition to electrified powertrains despite their bigger and heavier engines. This has reinforced the need for innovation in India’s automotive industry to meet stringent benchmarks, she said. “Given the motorisation level and steady shift towards bigger engines in India, the shortfall in the CAFÉ score could be a setback for the overall reduction in the carbon emissions India is aiming for,” she said.

The government official cited above, however, said given the rapid advancement in green technologies, meeting the 2040 targets will not be tough. “Once the industry reaches a critical mass, the reduction will be rapid.”

ET has learnt that senior officials from MoRTH will be making a presentation to the Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) next week to abreast them about the deviation of the CAFÉ score and to decide the next course of action. They will also deliberate on levying penalties on carmakers who have fallen short of the targeted score.

MoRTH is likely to officially publish the CAFÉ scores of all automakers for FY23 in the next few days—a practice it has been following since the norms came into effect. The ministry had published the CAFÉ score of automakers for FY22 on November 7, 2022, showed the ministry’s website.

The slippage on the targeted score would be a setback for the Centre which has set an ambitious CAFÉ target of 113 gm per km for CO2 effective FY23 from a previous target of 130 in the previous CAFÉ regime. Under CAFÉ 1, the PV industry emitted 7-8 gm per km less than the target score of 130.

The industry hasn’t been able to meet the norms due to several factors, said an auto industry executive, citing the steep fall in diesel vehicle sales-- from 52% to 12% over the last eight years, as one of the primary reasons. Diesel vehicles are more fuel efficient compared to petrol and help the CAFÉ scores.

An almost fivefold jump in sales of sports utility vehicles is another reason. The onset of the pandemic followed by a semiconductor crisis and an import ban from China also had an impact, the executive said.

“Since 2020, we have been requesting the government for two additional years for compliance, but our requests have not been heeded to. The involvement of multiple ministries has only complicated and delayed things,” he said.

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