Maruti diesel to make a comeback?

The onset of BS6 emission norms has caused car manufacturers to rethink their lineup and variants. The norms have been especially hard on diesel engines as they need a significant amount of changes to comply with the norms. Several manufacturers didn’t feel the investment was worth it. Maruti was one such manufacturer that didn’t update its diesel engines. Maruti, in the pre-BS6 era used Fiat’s 1.3-litre diesel engine on its cars. Post that, Maruti has focused completely on its petrol and CNG lineup. So the question arises will we ever see Maruti diesel again? Let’s find out.

How is Maruti making these cars better now?

Maruti’s plan forward

The Chief Technical Officer of Maruti, CV Raman, recently confirmed that the company will not be bringing its diesel engine back. Instead, the company has directed its effort into making its petrol cars more fuel-efficient. We have already seen this with the new Celerio and new Baleno. Maruti will also be extending CNG to more of its models due to their lower running costs. 

New emission norms

As mentioned above, the BS6 norms have severely dented the diesel car market. Now, the norms are expected to get even stricter with the introduction of BS6 stage 2. This will shoot up the development cost of diesel engines, increasing the overall cost. So, Maruti would not be wanting to invest so much.

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Maruti diesel – Low demand

Maruti believes that more & more people are going to prefer petrol engines over diesel engines. Also, Maruti is primarily known for smaller cars and the demand for diesel variants in such cars is low. Therefore, it makes sense for the company to not introduce a diesel engine again.

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