Oil prices, fuel efficiency and saber rattling

The last few months has been all about the record levels of fuel prices, what with the rising cost of crude oil and the $/barrel reaching new heights. Some analysts say that it will reach as high as $200 per barrel. This must sound like good news to all the OPEC nations and the BigOil corporations who are making record profits. 

While this definitely impacts the common man, it impacts in more ways than one. 

Last year, I made the decision to buy a fairly sophisticated car. Not only is this car a diesel car (making it a lot more cost effective in India, since diesel is still considered the farmer's fuel), it is also extremely fuel efficient. And it says so whenever I take it out for a drive. The display on the dashboard tells me all the information I need about the running of the car. The average speed, how far I have travelled since I last turned on the engine and - more importantly - how much fuel I'm consuming for that drive. I have a choice of keeping one of these indicators constantly on the display when I drive. Naturally, being Indian, I'm very concerned about how much fuel I burn getting from office to work and back.

What I have noticed is when I leave relatively early (courtesy having to drop my daughter to school every morning), I usually make it to office in around 25 minutes and the fuel efficiency readout shows 13.9 km/liter. The same journey at a slightly later time, or during traffic jam conditions, results in the readout showing 7.2 km/liter! And this is a good case!

When it rains in Bangalore, or because of the huge amounts of constructions(?) going on for the road leading to the new Bangalore International Airport, traffic piles up to such an extent that you can spend as much as an hour just clearing a small 1 km stretch on that road. I experienced it this morning when traffic refused to move for a long time and I watched as the counter moved steadily south to finally read 5.9 km/liter! With an average speed for the journey at 7 km/hour!

I just used up more than twice the amount of fuel for the same journey as I would have with relatively no traffic OR with infrastructure capable of handling the current traffic conditions. And this is for a very fuel efficient car. I shudder to think what it must be doing for mileage of older cars and ones that are not as tuned or as efficient. The problem is compounded even further when you consider that most of the cars running on the road are petrol, not diesel! 

It's one thing to talk about energy efficiency and pollution control, but all of that fine tuning and threshold setting comes to naught when you consider that most cars are running at speeds which are not the most optimum. That only causes the cars to burn more and pollute the environment more.

It's one thing about setting a high standard for cars being sold in India in terms of fuel efficiency and emission. It's a completely different thing when it comes to providing these efficient cars the necessary infrastructure to demonstrate that efficiency! And that is where we are lacking big time!

And to think that I would never have been able to quantify this had it not been for my car.