Hybrid cars more efficient in India than the US

Hybrid cars are a lot more fuel efficient in countries like India and China than United States of America. This research was done by scientists at the US Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab).

Researchers simulated drive cycles in Pune and New Delhi and also used the Modified Indian Drive Cycle, the test for the official fuel economy rating. In China they simulated drive cycles in 11 cities and with three types of hybrid power-trains (start-stop, parallel and power-split). In both cases they compared it to drive cycles used for US fuel efficiency ratings, which include about 55 per cent city driving and 45 per cent highway driving. They found that driving a hybrid would achieve fuel savings of about 47 to 48 per cent over a conventional car in India and about 53 to 55 per cent in China.

Heavy traffic, aggressive driving style, very less freeways in India makes hybrid cars very fuel efficient and thus ideal to use. However, the hybrid cars are very expensive in India due to high input costs and not so friendly policies for these vehicles.