In the coming few years, India plans to move to Bharat Stage 5 and 6 emission norms and due to this, the compact SUVs and small diesel car prices would be impacted the most.
According to auto industry sources, the move from Bharat Stage 4 or Bharat Stage 5 and beyond will require significant investment in technologies like Diesel Particle Filter (DPF) and Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) which will increase the cost of a small diesel car/SUV by INR 65,000-1 lakh. Petrol engines on the other hand will require simpler technology tweaks and will only call for an increase of INR 7000-11,000.
Due to the sophistication of the technology involved, small diesel vehicles will become further expensive when they are Bharat Stage 6-compliant, say sources.
Currently, diesel engines require a catalytic converter to be BS4-compliant. A move to BS5 will require both engine calibration as well as installation of the DPF. Further to BS6 , it will require more engine calibration as well as DPF and SCR. At each level, the cost will go up by INR 30,000-50,000 in the retail price of the vehicle. In comparison, a petrol engine will simply require ECU changes for both emission levels, hence the increase will be in the region of Rs 3000-6000 for each level.
After Euro 6 was introduced in Europe, sales of small diesel cars have gone down, as per an industry source. Automobile manufacturers are requesting the government for more time to get their plans and strategies in place. The BS4 norms will go national from 2017 onwards and the BS 5 & 6 time frames are still to be firmed up.
The auto fuel policy committee had suggested 2020 and 2024 for migration to Euro 5 and Euro 6 but the government is pushing for an earlier date.
Source: ETAuto