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Matiz the most eco-friendly car in India: Study

The most environmentally friendly car on Indian roads is Daewoo's small car Matiz, says a green rating of the Indian automobile industry conducted by a leading environment organisation.

Popular vehicle Maruti-800 (euro 11 model) bagged the second place and Hyundai's Santro third in the Centre for Science and Environment ratings released in the capital on Monday by former Finance Minister Manmohan Singh.

The small car was the clear winner of the day, backed by the green activists.

"All the top three eco-friendly vehicles are small cars. They have an inherent advantage over the large ones in that they emit less pollution and consume less fuel compared to larger vehicles," said CSE director Sunita Narain.

"It is not one car against the other, but the entire automobile industry could use this study to better their environmental performance, which is incidentally linked to their overall performance," she said.

On an average in the automobile segments it was found that in about 67 per cent of time there was a direct relation between the environmental rating and profit of the company, Narain said.

The automobile sector as a whole fared badly in the ratings and the top 'five leaves' award that was to go to the best company was not given.

The three companies that top the environment ratings in terms of overall performance are Daewoo Motor India Ltd, Hyundai Motors India Ltd and General Motors India. The best company however gets less than 45 per cent marks.

The companies that have been marked the lowest and have been hauled up by the greens are Bajaj Tempo, Yamaha Motor Escort Ltd and Swaraj Mazda Ltd.

The passenger car segment leads the way in the entire automobile sector, getting the 'three leaves' award given by CSE.

The mass transport vehicle segment comes second.

The two-and three-wheeler segment lags behind even the mass transport vehicles that have performed better with the introduction of compressed natural gas as fuel.

The study has declared Honda City the most technologically advanced and least polluting vehicle in India with emission as low as 85 per cent lower than euro 2 norms.

The vehicle with the worst performance environmentally is Mahendra and Mahendra's Armada, which comes last in the passenger car segment.

Among the two-and three-wheelers, both models of Hero Honda (Splendor and CD 100) are the most eco-friendly.

The CSE ratings say they are one of the few four-stroke two wheelers fitted with any kind of pollution control equipment.

The lowest score has been obtained by the Kinetic Safari moped.

Said Narain: "One of the key findings of the study is that multinationals have not scored any better than Indian companies.

"MNCs follow a double standard of dumping obsolete products on the pretext of poor fuel and the existing regulatory norm in the Indian market."

"If these companies are sticking to euro 4 norms in their countries the same companies use decade-old technology in India," she said.

The green rating of Indian industry project was started by CSE in 1996 to address an array of environmental issues facing all segments of Indian industry.

The project is funded by the United Nations Development Programme and the ministry of environment and forests.

With this rating CSE hopes it can win over the industry to spare a thought for the environment and also provide useful information to the consumer.

"We hope the consumer will include the environment in their buying decisions, which will push the companies to improve," said Narain.

Indo-Asian News Service

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