In the World of Cars, Small Can Be Big

Andrew is a science journalist and author who has written several books for Sally Ride Science, including Earth’s Precious Resources: Clean Air.

Will a teensy car that costs less cool cash when new than any other automobile in the world have an outsized impact on a warming planet? That’s the question on the mind of many environmentalists as India’s Tata Motors unveils its so-called People’s Car: a pint-sized auto with an even smaller price tag.

Costing a smidge over $2,500, Indian manufacturer Tata Motors says the car will be the world’s cheapest when it goes on sale later this year. It plans to build at least 250,000 of the cars annually.

That’s only a drop in the 50 million-unit-a-year global market for new vehicles. Still, it may herald a flood of similarly inexpensive cars that could put millions of people around the world behind the wheel for the first time.

There’s certainly the demand in places like India and China. In either nation, there are less than two dozen cars on the road for every 1,000 people. Compare that to the United States where vehicle ownership is about 700 per 1,000, and it’s clear why the Indian and Chinese automotive markets are hot.

It’s also clear that gasoline consumption—and emissions of greenhouse gases—will grow in India and China as more and more cars stream onto the thousands of miles of new roads hurriedly being built in both nations.

That raises the prospect that one day the two countries could be as awash in traffic as is the United States today. Granted, that could take decades: one study estimates it will take until 2030 to swell the global parking lot with 2 billion cars, up from 800 million in 2002.

But could the world supply the gasoline or diesel, at reasonable cost, needed to keep that many cars running? And could the world withstand the added carbon dioxide and other emissions pouring from that many more tailpipes?

It’s not clear. But it is important to remember that adding a new Tata on the road in Delhi isn’t the same as, say, putting a new Ford on the streets of Detroit—at least when it comes to fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.

Tata’s new car is expected to come with a 660cc engine—that’s less than one-fifth the displacement of the 3.5 liter engine found in a Ford Edge. And sure, Tata drivers will have to be content with a horsepower rating that’s about one-eighth that of a new Edge, but they should be able to travel 50 or more miles on each gallon of gas.

That would make the Tata about half as thirsty as the Ford. Because of that, the Indian car should produce half the CO2 as its American counterpart for each mile it travels.

That means 250,000 Tata econo cars tooling around India will gobble about the same amount of gas and belch roughly the same amount of CO2 as the 130,000 Ford Edges sold in the U.S. last year (assuming each Ford and Tata travels the same distance and gets 25 and 50 miles per gallon, respectively, in doing so).

So is the debut of a car that could put driving within the reach of millions across the developing world genuine cause for environmental concern?

The answer’s a qualified yes since each new Tata, as fuel efficient as it may be, is just one more oil-consuming, pollution-producing car on planet Earth. But Tata may ratchet up the pressure on other automotive manufacturers to roll out other cars that are just as thrifty. Expanding and updating the world’s automotive fleet with more fuel-efficient models could help contain global demand for oil and keep tailpipe emissions in check—even as the number of vehicles on the road blossoms.

At least one car company already appears to get the message. Ford Motor Co. announced plans this month to produce a new compact car for one of the world’s fastest growing automotive markets—a country called India.