India is soon going to get new emission norms. From April 1, 2023, Real Driving Emission norms will be applicable. These are set to be more stricter and would require expensive retrofits to models that could fail these tests. Hence it is likely that many diesel cars on sale could get discontinued. One of the victims of this new protocol could be the Hyundai i20.
Due to rising fuel costs and a very small difference between petrol and diesel fuel rates, many customers are opting for petrol versions of the Hyundai i20. Not just for the i20, but even across other manufacturers, the diesel option is unavailable in their line-ups. Considering the i20 segment, the diesel engine is offered only with the i20 and the Tata Altroz.
Customer choice has also shifted to petrol. Back in 2015, the diesel-petrol split for the i20 was 50:50. Today, barely 10 per cent of customers prefer the diesel option – that’s just 700 units per month.
Earlier this year, Grand i10 Nios and Aura both lost their diesel engines. The diesel engine was a 3-cylinder unit not shared with any other car in the Hyundai stable. Combined with low sales, this could be what prompted the Korean carmaker to axe this engine.
Hyundai’s diesel option would start from the Venue SUV. The Venue gets a 1.5-litre diesel engine that makes 100 HP. The same is shared with Creta, Verna and Alcazar. The same engine is also used in Kia’s Sonet SUV. The higher state of tune on this engine uses a variable geometry turbo, while the lower state gets a fixed geometry turbo. Additionally, in the SUV line-up, diesel accounts for 35% of Venue sales and more than 60% of Creta.
To meet the new RDE norms, a smaller engine would need the more expensive SCR ( Selective Catalytic Reduction) technology. Small diesel engines use the Lean NOx Trap (LNT) to meet BS6 norms. LNT is considerably cheaper than SCR. The larger diesel engines have already moved on to the SCR to meet emission norms. SCR systems can be identified by the presence of Ad Blue filler next to the fuel filler.
Maruti Suzuki, Renault Nissan and the VW Group have stopped selling diesel engines since the implementation of BS6. Honda is offering their diesels but is expected to discontinue once the RDE norms come in.
Also Read – Hyundai i20 variants deleted