India's first certification tool to assess fuel efficiency and carbon dioxide emissions of medium and heavy commercial vehicles is likely to be ready by December 2026, with The Automotive Research Association of India (Arai) targeting its launch at the Bharat Mobility Global Expo scheduled for February 4-9, 2027. According to government officials, Arai has completed field trials and collected data from all 16 diesel vehicles tested as part of the project. A senior official from the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) suggested implementing the tool for heavy-duty vehicles could align with Bharat Stage-VII — the next stage of India's vehicle emission norms — expected to be rolled out from the middle of 2027 onwards.
Arai has completed input generation for four proof-of-concept (PoC) vehicles and developed eight mission profiles representing standardised operating patterns designed to capture differences in speed, load, route, and driving conditions. As reported by government officials, these mission profiles were targeted for completion by July 2026, allowing the tool to assess vehicle performance under conditions more representative of actual operations. A beta version of the tool, known as Bharat Vecto, was targeted for release to vehicle manufacturers by July for evaluation and feedback, though it remains unclear whether these profiles and the beta version have been shared with vehicle makers for evaluation.
The tool's scope will eventually extend beyond diesel trucks to cover range calculations for electric commercial vehicles (eCVs) in its second phase. According to officials, this could provide the government with a standardised way to determine how far electric trucks and buses can travel on a single charge under different operating conditions as electrification of the commercial vehicle segment gathers pace. The system would assess how far an electric truck or bus can travel on a given battery charge under standardised operating conditions, as electric vehicles do not consume liquid fuel.
For the commercial vehicle industry, the tool could change how manufacturers design and optimise trucks, as fuel efficiency and CO2 performance would be assessed across different operating conditions rather than at a single fixed speed. This could push manufacturers to improve the efficiency of the entire vehicle — including the engine, transmission, tyres, and aerodynamics — while giving fleet operators a more standardised basis to compare vehicles. Arai has also submitted a draft notification on Bharat Vecto to MoRTH for consideration and is preparing AIS 218, an Automotive Industry Standard that will set out the technical methodology and requirements for the tool.
