Car.... Becar?

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My camera assistant, on the first day of the AutoExpo asked me "yeh jo ek laakh ke gaadi aayi hai, woh petrol ya deisel may launch hui hai?" (he was early by a day).

Just the day before, our office librarian quizzed me about "the car". He said he was seriously looking at purchasing one and hoping to cut his petrol bill by half! (Never mind that he already owns a set of wheels). On our way back from a shoot, our cab driver painstakingly laid out the logic: many people in villages and small towns buy the Bullet, that's around 80 thousand rupees a bike, surely they'd want to buy Tata's 1 lakh car?

Three stray conversations, and I realise that as d-day draws near just about everyone - not just scoop-crazed journalists - is waiting for the actual launch of this 'miracle' vehicle.

Ever since the car got on the drawing board, there have been articles lauding it, and there have been detractors; mostly environmentalists who say the car will be a green nightmare.

There's some truth to that. The car in itself may be fuel-efficient and conform to strict emission norms, but easy affordability means that there could be hundreds of thousands of these on the roads in no time, causing severe traffic congestion and pollution, not to mention a big spike in CO2 emissions. One out of three CNN-IBN citizen journalists-I've been told- write in to complain about traffic congestion! Lets face it, people today are pulling guns and sticks to settle parking disputes. Where will we be if the number of vehicles doubled! They say, in a decade, one in every 6 cars will be owned by an Indian.

This is a very real nightmare, and not just for environmentalists.

But should the self-styled green czars like Sunita Narain & RK Pachauri be putting all the blame on this small car?

They are the very same people who have been screaming abroad that India is still a developing nation and therefore cannot afford to cut down on CO2 emissions at the cost of economic development! At the cost of food, electricity and might I add, mobility.

Who are we, who work in glass-fronted offices & drive four-wheelers to say that others cannot/should not upgrade because its bad for the environment? Clearly, there have to be other ways of solving the looming green crisis.

We could get cracking on better public transport, mandatory fuel efficiency norms, stricter emission standards, maybe even taxes on private parking.

Meanwhile, market forces will decide how well the small car does, not just on pricing and fuel, but things like safety, sturdiness, space and long-distance performance (distances in our cities are no laughing matter. We're not France where limited-speed Quadricycles work).

Market forces will also decide what comes into India in the future. If 3G is what we're working towards in mobile telephony and high definition in televisions, then hybrids and fuel-celled vehicles will make their presence felt as well. Mahindra and Mahindra has already piped competition by announcing the launch of India's first hybrid vehicle.

So let's be honest, India is still a country where owning a car is not just about mobility, but also people's aspirations. It's about one's status in society. They cannot be wished (or taxed)away.

Bottomline: Indians will buy cars. So the smaller, greener & more fuel efficient they come- the better.

Lets give the 1 lakh car a chance