The diesel car ban has affected a lot of automakers in the country and each one of them is lobbying in different ways to deal with the issue.
Last week, the court passed a mind-boggling judgement where diesel cars having engines bigger than 2000cc were banned in Delhi and while the existing ones continue to ply, registration of new ones won’t take place. Due to this judgement, a lot of manufacturers will now have their sales getting affected by a considerable margin. While this ban isn’t really going to change the levels of pollution in the city by a considerable margin, manufacturers have already started exploring new ways to cope with this ban.
Mahindra’s two most popular SUVs, the XUV500 and the Scorpio come with 2.2-litre diesel engines and hence these have been banned too. The company will be providing a refund to those customers who have booked their vehicles, but what the automaker is also trying to do is to transfer some of these bookings to the TUV300 and KUV100 which come with smaller engines. Mahindra is also studying the feasibility of coming up with updated diesel engines that are below the 2000cc mark.
Mahindra dealers in Delhi have stocks of upto 1000 vehicles lying with them and the company is in the process of transferring these vehicles to dealers in other cities. Officials from Mahindra feel that the growing air pollution is a very serious issue but the government shouldn’t just blame diesel SUVs for that, but instead take proper measures that can curb pollution properly. To us, the current ban seems like a hurried decision.
The automaker is also urging the government to give more incentives for electric vehicles. Dr. Pawan Goenka also highlighted the fact that EVs produce zero emissions. In fact, Goenka also feels that the government should give a go-ahead to bio-diesel. He claims that Mahindra is capable of producing bio-diesel vehicles immediately. The Supreme Court will be hearing the case on 5th January 2016 now and the auto industry is hoping they get a proper chance to express their views and concerns.
