Green Prophet first met Gal Luft,
an Israeli-American lobbyist and alternative energy educator in
Washington for the Set America Free Coalition, when Karin covered a profile of Luft on ISRAEL21c.
Today, Luft talks about the launch of India’s Tata Nano, the cheapest
car in the world and one that could change the entire industry, he says.
But first, a little more on Luft: he advises American senators
and presidents on how America can end its dangerous dance with foreign
oil. Growing up in Haifa, Israel where he was born, and later South
Africa, Luft became all too aware of how oil is used as a weapon for
war.
Newsweek Magazine has called Luft a “tireless and independent
advocate of energy security,” while Esquire Magazine bestowed upon him
the title of one of America’s Best and Brightest, in 2007. He is the
most hated man in several U.S. cities, including Detroit.
Here are his thoughts on the new Tata Nano:
It’s 2 feet shorter than a Mini Cooper, presents an almost cartoonish
appearance and weighs less than the four passengers it seats.
But for the 350-million-plus middle class of India, the just-launched
Tata Nano, the world’s cheapest car at $2,000, is a cause for
exhilaration. And for the first 100,000 lucky customers drawn via
lottery, it’s a dream come true.
A century after Henry Ford put America on wheels with the Model T,
the affordable Tata Nano is doing the same to the less privileged of the
world. What is now dismissed by many as a “toy car” could soon reveal
itself to be the mouse that roared, one of the most transformational
consumer products of the century.
Roughly 100,000 Indians lose their lives on the road every year,
seven times the rate of the developed world. In a country where it is
not uncommon to see entire families overflowing a rickshaw or women in
saris sitting side-saddle on a bike with small children on their laps,
moving one’s family from an unsafe bike into a plastic capsule is a
sensible $2,000 investment.
Safety and affordability were what Ratan
Tata, chairman of the Tata Group, envisioned for the Nano. The low
sticker price means a 65 percent increase in the number of Indian
families who can now afford a car.
But India is not the only hub of poverty, and what works for its
middle class could appeal to those in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka,
Guatemala, Congo and scores of other countries, including China, where
the middle class is projected to hit 700 million by 2020.
Because of this huge potential market, and even though the Nano emits
25 percent less carbon dioxide per mile than a standard automobile,
environmentalists are terrified by the micro-car. Nobel Prize winner
Rajendra Pachauri, head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change, said he was “having nightmares” about the Nano and its potential
to pollute.
See the Tata Nano test drive video:
But these concerns could be alleviated should the tens of millions of
new micro-cars that will roll onto the planet’s roads be able to run on
something other than gasoline. There are many approaches here, from
compressed air to batteries.
All of them would increase the car’s price and weight, making it less
attractive to the poor. The only exception is the flex-fuel technology,
which would allow micro-cars to run on any combination of gasoline and
alcohol, as do most cars in Brazil today.
Flex-fuel technology would bump the price of the Nano by less than
$100. But it would allow Indians to grow their fuel rather than import
it. Nearly half of India’s land is arable, and it is already the world’s
second largest producer of sugar cane: by far the best crop for ethanol
production.
Micro-cars with flex-fuel engines fed by domestically grown fuel
would reduce poor countries’ trade deficits, strengthen their energy
security, create agricultural jobs and even reduce carbon dioxide
emissions.
Micro-cars can be engines of prosperity in more ways then one. But
only if they offer the world’s poor more than the false hope of
indefinite cheap gasoline.
Cutting Edge energy desk writer Gal Luft is executive director of
the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security and co-founder of the
Set America Free Coalition. He is a co-author of two forthcoming books:
“Energy Security Challenges for the 21st Century” and “Turning Oil into
Salt: How Breaking the Oil Monopoly Can Make Us Prosper Again.”
(This article was reprinted with permission from the
Cutting Edge News)
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