Maruti Suzuki has made a statement that they won’t be selling any diesel car April 2020 onwards.
Maruti Suzuki announced their results today and at the press conference, the company’s chairman Mr. R C Bhargava stated that the automaker won’t be selling any diesel car in India from 1st April 2020. The automaker has stated the high cost of upgrading diesel engines to meet BS6 guidelines as the reason for this decision.
23% of Maruti Suzuki’s annual sales come from diesel cars and the automaker will push customers to opt for petrol or CNG variants by offering incentives. The company will also launch CNG versions of more of their offerings. Even now, many cars in the company’s portfolio are available with a CNG option. However, it was also stated that diesel engines might be re-introduced if there is adequate demand.
Maruti Suzuki sold 17.53 lakh cars in India in the last fiscal. The company had been working on their new diesel engine since quite a few years. Just a couple of days back, the automaker launched updated versions of the Baleno and Alto hatchbacks. The Baleno and Alto are now BS6 compliant and cars like the Wagon R, Swift, Dzire, etc. are expected to comply with the new norms very soon.
With the new BS6 norms, not only Maruti but also a lot of other manufacturers are expected to phase out diesel cars, especially the ones with small capacity engines. Demand is likely to shift to petrol cars and hybrids while it will still take some time for EVs to arrive in our market in a full-fledged manner.
Maruti Diesel Cars
– Maruti won’t sell any diesel car from 1st April 2020
– The company will focus on petrol and CNG variants
– Maruti is also readying the Wagon R EV for India
