Indian car manufacturers use bare cold-rolled steel and its variants, while abroad it is mandatory for auto companies to use galvanised steel bodies.
International standards make it mandatory for car manufacturers to issue a five-year guarantee against "cosmetic corrosion" and a seven- to ten-year guarantee against "perforation corrosion" of the car body, he added.
Khanna's survey of 5,000 cars in Mumbai, which has high corrosion levels owing to average humidity levels of around 60 percent, revealed that cars older than five years had rust formation and "bustering". Foreign-made cars fared much better in terms of atmospheric degradation, Khanna said.
"All car models exported from India are galvanised as per regulatory norms mandated by the US and Europe, but the same models are not galvanised for the Indian market," De Souza said.
He pointed out that in the small car segment in India, only three percent had galvanised bodies, while the figure goes up to 70 percent for cars for export.
This is mainly because Indian consumers never insisted on guarantee from car manufacturer for corrosion-resistant body, a norm followed in most advanced countries.
The use of galvanised advanced high strength steels helps in the reduction of car body weight, emissions and improves safety performance along with fuel efficiency, which is in line with the requirement of the new-age cars for Indian roads, Chief Operating Officer (Smelters), Hindustan Zinc, Vikas Sharma said.
Source: http://auto.economictimes.indiatimes.com/