Your next car’s LED lights could count toward a green upgrade now

The LED headlights or solar-reflective paint on your next car might soon do more than look good – India’s power ministry wants them to count as fuel-saving technology under new draft rules.

The draft Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE)-III regulations, opened for stakeholder consultation, would let carmakers earn compliance credit for a specific set of technologies instead of leaning only on electric and hybrid vehicles to hit efficiency targets.

The list spans automatic start-stop systems, tyre pressure monitoring systems (TPMS), regenerative braking, six-speed-or-higher transmissions, high-efficiency alternators, LED exterior lighting, advanced glazing, electric water pumps and solar-reflective paint.

Each technology, once approved, is worth 1 gram of CO2 per kilometre, equal to 0.0422 litres per 100 km of fuel under the Modified Indian Driving Cycle (MIDC). Benefits can be combined across technologies, but the overall cap sits at 9 grams of CO2 per kilometre, or 0.3795 litres per 100 km.

Many of these features already exist on premium and mid-segment cars, but have mostly been marketed as convenience or luxury extras rather than efficiency tools. The new framework is meant to push manufacturers to fit them into mass-market models too, since it offers a relatively low-cost way to improve fleet-average fuel economy.

The draft also adds compliance incentives linked to renewable fuels, giving flex-fuel vehicles a stronger case within the same framework.

Wikimedia Commons/by Rameshng