An alternate to CNG!

A breed of vehicles that shook the Los Angles community over the past decade is the Hybrid. LA dwellers, mostly Hollywood stars and directors, switched to hybrids showing off they too cared for environment. Hybrid cars are extremely fuel-efficient and in some cases consumes one third of the fuel a regular car would do. Combined with two power plants, one petrol and one electric, a hybrid uses the electric motor at low speeds and switches to the petrol engine when more power or speed is required. The short charge-up time enables it to be more dependent on the electric motor rather than its environment unfriendly brother. People at Honda have been working really hard to extract the last drop of juice from their Civic hybrid's batteries. The have even installed a device that would charge the batteries whenever the brakes are engaged. The Honda 2.0 litre Dual Over Head Cam (DOHC) I-Vtec engine has almost 65:1 ratio of air and fuel mixture making it one of the most fuel-efficient engines ever.

A Honda Civic Hybrid would go more than 28km per litre which is unthinkable for conventional cars.

Pity our car importers have failed to see the possibilities of hybrid cars in the country. When contacted Navana, the importers of Toyota, informed they do not import hybrids as there is no market for it. They however said they would be able to import a second hand hybrid if a customer asked for it. Meanwhile Rashed Haque of HS Enterprise, importers of Honda vehicles, said they do not import hybrids at all.

May be the time has come to think about how much we spend on petrol and how little we are doing for the environment. Other nations are now thinking about reducing tax on hybrids in a bid to encourage people to buy these vehicles. May be our importers have to step up and convince the government that the time has come for us to care.