Indian automaker Maruti Suzuki will be launching the Vitara Brezza next month and it will be offered with only a diesel engine in India.
The Maruti Vitara Brezza compact SUV is all set to be launched at the upcoming 2016 Auto Expo and the company is betting big on the car. The latest buzz states that the automaker will offer the compact SUV with only a diesel engine and petrol lovers will be disappointed by the fact that no petrol engine will be offered in the Indian market. While diesel engines have been popular in our market since the past 4-5 years, popularity for petrol engines is again growing due to the lowered cost of the fuel.
Despite the fact that a significant chunk of buyers are preferring vehicles with petrol engines since they offer a low upfront cost, Maruti thinks that they will still be able to capture the market with the diesel engine only and the automaker expects to sell 10,000 units of the vehicle every month. The company will however plonk in a 1.5-litre M-Series petrol engine in the export variants of the car. Maruti will be exporting the Vitara Brezza to the Indonesian market.
The diesel engine that will power the Maruti Vitara Brezza is the same 1.3-litre DDiS unit sourced from Fiat and it also powers a lot of other vehicles such as the Swift, DZire, Ciaz, Ertiga from the Maruti stable and the Bolt and Zest from the Tata stable (it also powers Fiat and GM cars). Maruti started developing the Vitara Brezza way back in 2012 when demand for SUVs had started rising. There is a possibility that the company may start offering a petrol engine in the Indian market in the future.
The Maruti Vitara Brezza will make its public debut at the 2016 Auto Expo and we expect it to be priced in the whereabouts of Rs. 7-10 lakhs (ex-showroom). The SUV will compete with the likes of the Renault Duster, Hyundai Creta and Nissan Terrano but there is also the possibility of the car cannibalising sales of its sibling, the S-Cross, which is already selling in very low numbers.
Source – EconomicTimes.com
