Diesel cars might soon go out of production in India. This decision came after Maruti Suzuki, the Country’s largest car manufacturer declared that they would stop producing diesel powered cars like the version of Celerio small cars in India. This surprised a few consumers as many have given up favoring the diesel cars as much as before. But this decision was triggered because of Diesel’s image as a harmful polluter.
The dent in diesel’s image favored the petrol cars even in SUVs and Sedans. This change is expected to gain momentum after new emission rules will be implemented in the next three years. This will increase the price of diesel cars when compared to the petrol powered options in the industry. As of now, very few cars like Grand i10, Baleno and Tata Tiago are in the market for diesel engine.
The sales of diesel cars have shrunk down to 27% in April-September in 2016 which was 47% two years before that. Diesel cars always had higher demand due to higher fuel efficiency and torque, but now petrol is making the rounds including the utility vehicle space. In 2012-13, only 3% of UV buyers whereas it has now increased 16%
Heavy vehicles like Toyota Innova and Fortuner which were previously only in a diesel model are now even available with petrol engine option. With the increasing demand for petrol, Jeep has now planned to introduced petrol engine powered Wrangler in India which was previously not present in the Indian Market.
