A Maruti Suzuki spokesperson has revealed, that by 2020, the price gap between petrol and diesel cars is set to increase. At the moment, diesel cars are expensive compared to their petrol variants in the range of INR 1 lakh. This price gap will widen from INR 1.5 – 2.5 lakh on the top trim variants, which will create a huge impact on sales.
By 2020, every car manufacturer has upgrade their cars to meet BSVI norms. By doing so, the cost involved to develop and update the current diesel engines is very high. This will result in diesel cars demanding for a big difference in money. While this is one reason why diesel cars will sell less, the move towards electrification in the automobile world is another factor to consider. Also, the government will push petrol hybrid cars, which will make it a tough case for diesel cars to make sense in the real world post 2020.
Will a customer buy a diesel car rather than a petrol hybrid for the same money? Will a customer just settle for a standard petrol powered car and save money? All this is uncertain for now. But, all car manufacturers have to work towards making their product portfolio BSVI compliant for sure.
Diesel cars will need a DPF – diesel particulate filter, SCR – selective catalytic reduction & LNT – Lean NOx Trap. Since all this happens in one go, as the BSV norms are being skipped, this cost will eventually have to be incurred by the car buyer.
Maruti Suzuki apart from their mild SHVS hybrid technology is also working with Bosch for full electric engine options. With heavy localisation, electric cars can be made affordable. It is being said that petrol hybrid cars can save ~30% in fuel consumption while diesel cars save a lesser ~25%.
But all of this, be it just a petrol motor which is BSVI compliant or a diesel engine. Or a petrol hybrid. All of it is going to come at a cost.
We don’t want to talk about CNG!