Five automobile majors -- Bajaj Auto, Ashok Leyland, Tata Motors, Mahindra and Eicher Motors -- have come together to develop hydrogen-blended compressed natural gas-run vehicles.
This is a part of a roadmap to develop alternate and less polluting fuel sources by Siam and the government. The roadmap envisages development of hydrogen as neat fuel and run one lakh vehicles on it by 2010.
These companies are expected to bring out different HCNG-compliant vehicles in phases. A Bajaj three-wheeler is expected to be the first HCNG-compliant vehicle, to be followed by a LCV-b Eicher. The government's overall initiative on hydrogen fuel envisages an investment of Rs 24,000 crore, a major part of which will be invested in production, storage and dispensation of hydrogen in the country.
The first batch of HCNG vehicles are expected to hit roads in next year and fuel infrastructure will be put in place to run 1,000 vehicles operating on 100 per cent hydrogen by 2008.
To start
with, new vehicles will be introduced and in the subsequent stages existing CNG fleet will be covered. A pilot project will be launched with Siam as the nodal agency for field trials and ministry of non-conventional energy will spearhead this from the government's side.
A memorandum of understanding is expected shortly to fix the timeframe.
The second stage will be creation of naturally renewable hydrogen fuel infrastructure in the country and make it commercially viable under the hydrogen roadmap developed under the aegis of Ratan Tata, chairman of Tata Motors.
The existing facility of Indian Oil Corporation, at Faridabad in Haryana, which has the necessary infrastructure to develop Hydrogen as automotive fuel, will be utilised for the pilot study. Industry sources also said that to meet the demand, Indian Oil Corporation's is expected to set up a second unit for Hydrogen blending in Delhi next year. And later all the existing 135-CNG stations in the capital will be made HCNG compliant.