Blue Energy Motors, a two-year old start-up backed by a Singapore-based firm, unveiled India’s first Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) fuelled green truck in Chakan near Pune on Friday.
The trucks are powered by Iveco FPT, global powertrain brand of Iveco Group. The company claimed that the engines generate high torque and help trucks deliver best in class TCO (total cost of ownership) and offer unmatched ride comfort and safety for the drivers for long hauls. The market entry of the LNG-fuelled trucks will start with the introduction of 5,528 4×2 tractor by the end of the current month
Union Minister of Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari inaugurated the facility which has an installed capacity of 10,000 trucks annually. “This is the fuel for the future,” said Gadkari. It’s cost effective and a change-maker for the transport sector. It is a great alternative to petrol and diesel at a time when we import so much,” he added.
Responding to how these trucks will run given the almost non-existent LNG infrastructure, Anirudh Bhuwalka, chief executive at Blue Energy said, “These are long-haul trucks that can travel up to 1,400 kilometres in one fill.” About 20 LNG stations are coming up and by next one year this is expected to go up to 50 stations. Various public sector undertakings (PSU) and private oil and gas marketing companies are setting up these, he added.
The facility added Bhuwalka is the company’s first step towards “pioneering the green trucking revolution.” “We at Blue Energy Motors aim to decarbonize the environment by providing an immediate solution and breaking the barriers of economic returns,” he said.
Gadkari said with LNG, logistics cost can be reduced by 16 per cent, adding that the idea is to bring it down further by 10 per cent.
“We are making LNG and CNG from biomass in Maharashtra, Punjab and Haryana. Within two years we will have more than 200 capacities in the country. Biofuel is the future and we have a huge potential for export. It’s essential for the economy. The prospects for the industry are great and I am excited about the future, as we move towards reducing pollution,” he said.
“This company has been formed with the understanding that we will be bringing to the market, based on green technologies such as LNG, hydrogen and electric,” said Prakhar Saxena, chief marketing officer, Blue Energy Motors.
The FPT Industrial engine is one the most powerful natural gas engines in the market and is compatible with CNG, LNG and biomethane; it uses multipoint stoichiometric combustion to assure best-in-class fuel consumption and lower noise than diesel engines, Blue Energy said in the statement.
“This agreement is of the utmost importance for FPT Industrial, now and in the future, as we want our leading technologies to play a key role to support the ecological transition of one of the world’s largest vehicle markets,” said Sylvain Blaise, President of Iveco Group
