Mahindra to strongly focus on petrol cars & SUVs

Diesel power has been Mahindra’s mainstay for years. It will change soon, and the company will make a strong shift towards petrols. By 2020, Mahindra wants petrol engined vehicles to sell equal to its diesel range. This announcement was made by Dr. Pawan Goenka, the MD of Mahindra.

Here is what he said,

There is a general perception that diesel will slow down and petrol will become stronger in the coming years. We are working on very strong petrol engine line up and by the time BS6 rolls in, and our portfolio of petrol cars coming in, our petrol portfolio will be as strong as diesel if not stronger.

What Dr. Goenka means is that there is a general shift towards petrol engines worldwide. Many countries plan to ban diesel engined cars very soon as diesel emissions are carcinogenic. Making diesel engines cleaner requires a lot of expensive emission control. Basically, the whole world wants to shift towards electric cars with petrol-hybrids acting as a bridge until full electrification happens. This has left the diesel engine with nowhere to go.

In India, by 2020, emission norms will become very strict as the Bharat Stage 6 norms come into effect. These norms are expected to increase the cost of diesel engines as they will need expensive emission control equipment. Petrol engines can meet BS6 norms much more easily, and with much lesser investment. Mahindra and Ssangyong are already working on a range of normally aspirated and turbocharged petrol engines.

These engines will be available in 1.2liter, 1.5 liter/1.6 liter and 2 liter displacements. Mahindra has already fitted the newly developed 1.2 liter petrol engine in the KUV100. A turbocharged version of this engine will be fitted to the S201 (Ssangyong Tivoli based compact SUV). In fact, 50 % of KUV100 sales comes from the petrol versions. One Mahindra adds petrol engines to its other cars, the company expects the same trend to repeat.

Via ETAuto