Inside India’s ethanol revolution in reverse
First E20, then E85, now E100 and finally, flex fuel vehicles—India is undertaking an audacious experiment to build a new multi-billion-dollar green mobility ecosystem. But
First E20, then E85, now E100 and finally, flex fuel vehicles—India is undertaking an audacious experiment to build a new multi-billion-dollar green mobility ecosystem. But here’s the catch: it’s playing the long game, completely in reverse.In standard industrial transitions, the market responds organically to vehicle demand by slowly introducing fuel infrastructure over time; for example, the way the country’s first electric vehicles were rolled out.However, under a recent order from the Central government, the infrastructure for E100 is essentially arriving first.Also Read | Maruti Suzuki launches India's first fle fuel car, bets on biofuels to boost energy securityDriven by a pressing need to secure national energy self-reliance and shield the domestic economy from volatile geopolitical crises—particularly the ongoing oil trade disruptions in West Asia—the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, alongside state-run oil marketing companies, has committed to laying down 5,000 dedicated E100 dispensing stations across the country over the next two years.“India imports a large quantity of crude oil every year, and biofuels like ethanol are an important pathway towards reducing this dependence while strengthening our rural economy. Fle Fuel Vehicles can create a strong and sustainable demand for ethanol, benefiting our farmers, industry, and the environment together,” Union Road Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari said at an event in New Delhi last week.“Today, we are facing an energy crisis due to the war in West Asia, so it is necessary for us to become self-reliant in the energy sector,” he had said earlier.The physical distribution network is springing up before fle fuel vehicles have even rolled off assembly lines, and there may be some questions.At the very heart of this systemic transformation sits the domestic sugar and distillation industry. Ethanol is fundamentally a high-purity alcohol. Just as traditional alcohol is created through fermentation, the bio-ethanol used to power cars is produced by capturing the natural chemistry of sugar and microscopic organisms.Deepak Ballani, the Director General of the Indian Sugar Mills Association (ISMA), views this massive transition not merely as a temporary patch for the automotive market, but as a structural overhaul of how India generates and consumes energy.Also Read | India waives excise duty on petrol with higher ethanolAccording to Ballani, the entire premise of the debate around biofuels needs to change.He points out that looking at ethanol as a mere substitute for petrol misses the larger economic picture.
“The premise assumes that ethanol is merely a substitute for petrol, whereas its value extends far beyond fuel price parity,” Ballani said.“Ethanol is a domestically produced renewable fuel that reduces India's dependence on imported crude oil, improves energy security, and creates a stable income stream for farmers and rural economies,” the ISMA chief added.Breaking the chicken-and-egg dilemmaFor decades, the global transition to alternative fuels has been plagued by a classic chicken-and-egg dilemma where automakers refuse to manufacture alternative fuel vehicles because there are no dispensing pumps, and fuel providers refuse to install pumps because there are no vehicles to buy the fuel.India has smashed this deadlock by moving the fuel supply mechanism ahead of the vehicle market.The country has already executed a rise under its Ethanol Blended Petrol Programme, lifting ethanol blending in standard petrol from a meagre 1.5% in 2014 to a ubiquitous 20% today.According to a PIB release this month, that 20% achievement alone has unlocked a staggering Rs 1.84 lakh crore in foreign exchange savings through the substitution of 302 lakh metric tonnes of imported crude oil.However, the leap from E20 to E100, which represents 100% pure ethanol, introduces some technical and structural complexities.Recognising that the infrastructure must act as the primary catalyst, Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas, Hardeep Singh Puri, announced a hyper-accelerated rollout of 50 to 100 ethanol dispensing stations across the Delhi-NCR region and the Mumbai-Pune-Nagpur corridor.This regional pilot network is targeted to swell to 500 hundred stations by December 2026, culminating in a sprawling web of 5,000 across major cities by the end of 2027.Seeing the plan of physical pumps materialise, within days of E100 pump announcement, market leader Maruti Suzuki took the definitive first step.On June 4, the auto giant officially launched India’s first fle fuel passenger car, the Wagon R Flex Fuel that is able to operate seamlessly on any blend of petrol and ethanol between E20 and E100."A new chapter in India's energy journey,” is what Hisashi Takeuchi, Managing Director & CEO of Maruti Suzuki India termed the event.However, the Maruti Suzuki head called for some team effort."Large-scale adoption of fle fuel will take time and effort from all stakeholders. An entire ecosystem needs to be developed – from fuel availability to more model launches, from customer awareness to fuel and vehicle pricing.
The BriefWire