Maruti Swift, Dzire, Ignis & Baleno could go CNG

India’s largest car manufacturer Maruti Suzuki is now making efforts to meet upcoming fuel efficiency norms. Maruti Suzuki has plans to shift diesel variants of their small cars like Swift, Dzire to CNG. This step is aimed at reducing air pollution in major metro cities.

Suzuki Motor Corp. India, has even asked some of their dealerships to bid for licenses to set up their own CNG stations so that they can keep up with company’s plan of selling 2,00,000 CNG vehicles by 2022. In order to meet this target Maruti will have to come up with a new range of vehicles running on CNG fuel.

Maruti Suzuki’s strategy to run cars on eco-friendly fuels comes at a time when government is all set to implement BS VI emission norms. With the implementation of new emission norms next year the vehicles should emit lesser amount of pollutants to the environment and will have to run on cleaner fuels providing better efficiency.

This means Maruti Suzuki will also have to modify their engines as their Fiat MultiJet diesel engines are not BS VI compliant. And modifying a diesel engine to meet BS VI norms will definitely increase the price of their small cars, which will affect in lowering the sales. So the better option for Maruti Suzuki will be to smoothly shift their small cars from diesel fuel to CNG.

The use of CNG makes an immediate and direct contribution to the reduction of emissions. When compared to petrol or diesel powered car, CNG vehicles release approximately 25 percent less Carbon Dioxide (CO2) during combustion. CNG also burns more cleanly than petrol and diesel.

Its not just Maruti Suzuki who is interested in manufacturing cars that run on cleaner fuels. Many manufacturers like Mahindra and Volkswagen also have plans for dumping diesel engines and invest on CNG. Volkswagen had earlier indicated that their new compact SUV which will be launched in India around 2020-21 will not get a diesel engine.

It is likely to get a turbocharged petrol engine and is expected to offer a CNG-petrol option also. Volkswagen is already offering a number of models with natural gas engine in the international market like Germany. Volkswagen calls it as TGI powertrain.