Nitin Gadkari’s Idea of Hydrogen-fueled Cars is “Mind-bogglingly stupid” according to Elon Musk
A year ago, Toyota and the International Centre for Automotive Technology launched a project testing hydrogen-fueled cells, under Indian Union Minister for road and transport, Nitin Gadkari. Gadkari who has been using a mid-sized sedan fueled by hydrogen cells talks about making India work on Green Hydrogen-fueled cars. He said that Green Hydrogen is the future of India.
Green hydrogen is produced through the electrolysis of hydrogen. Green hydrogen is pumped into cars that have hydrogen cells to produce electricity that runs the car. Elon argues that rather than using hydrogen to produce electricity to fuel cars, why not use electric cars directly?
Nitin Gadkari’s plan has a bigger picture. Using electric trucks needs enough space and time to charge. This is not a feasible option. Gadkari’s plan also focuses on the heavy industry that produces a lot of Carbon dioxide that is hard to decarbonize. Green Hydrogen can become a feasible alternative.
In order to reduce the cost of production, the government has introduced a Production-Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme to garner incentives for this process. The minister talked about bringing down the cost of production by using recycled materials and reducing the use of cement and steel. The government is also deciding on setting out clear mandates for heavy industries to shift to hydrogen fuels. If this plan is successful, it will gain the attention of many companies willing to produce Green hydrogen from India. This will ultimately reduce the cost of green hydrogen which will be an added advantage for India.
