Carmakers are sceptical about the future of diesel powered small cars as the demand is shrinking because of small difference between diesel and petrol price along with strict norms.
With the recent court orders and government moves against diesel powered cars, buyers are shifting their interest more towards petrol powered cars, specially in the smaller segment vehicles. This has led to sharp decline in the demand for small diesel cars since there is very little difference between petrol and diesel price and nowadays small petrol cars return relatively high fuel efficiency.
Now carmakers like Maruti, Toyota, Honda and Tata Motors are keeping their future plans for small diesel cars and engines on hold. Maruti is currently considering to stop using their homegrown 800cc oil burner in their own cars. It currently powers the Celerio, which might get discontinued eventually with this decision. India’s largest carmaker also had plans to introduce more small cars with this diesel motor.
Toyota will be launching a Honda City rival, Vios in the Indian market very soon and they have dropped the idea of putting their 1.5-litre diesel engine in it. Honda was studying a 3-cylinder 1.2-litre compact diesel engine for the Indian market but now the Japanese automaker has shelved the idea of doing so and instead work for the BS VI compliant engines.
Tata Motors already have a 1.2-litre diesel running in the Tiago but they were also working on a 1.6-litre diesel. These plans have been put on hold realising the current state of diesels in our country, specially in Delhi NCR. The market share of diesel cars has declined from 58 percent to 42 percent since a few years. While Maruti will focus on small petrol cars and are working on a 1.5-litre diesel, Toyota is considering hybrid tech for future cars including Vios and Corolla Altis.
Small Diesel Cars Put On Hold, Maruti Celerio Diesel To Discontinue
– Decline in demand for small diesel cars put future plans on hold
– Maruti to discontinue 800cc diesel on the Celerio hatchback
– Toyota planning to put hybrid tech on most of the cars
– Tata Motors putting 1.6-litre diesel engine study on hold
Source – ETAuto.com