By Maruti Suzuki is India’s largest car manufacturer by volume and the entire portfolio is petrol or CNG powered only as the company discontinued the diesel engine during BS6 transformation earlier this year. The Indo-Japanese manufacturer had two diesel engines in its portfolio – 1.3 L diesel engine sourced from Fiat and an in-house developed 1.5 L unit, which was introduced towards the end of 2018 on the Ciaz facelift model, which was later introduced in other models.
According to a new report, Maruti Suzuki is upgrading its Manesar plant for the production of BS6 diesel engines and it will be introduced in 2021 on models like Ciaz, S-Cross, Ertiga and XL6 followed by Vitrara Brezza. We are expecting the company to upgrade in-house 1.5 L diesel engine even though the initial cost will be on the higher side but on the long run it will be profitable for the company as they don’t need to pay royalty amount to other manufacturer.
Fiat had already announced that the company is not upgrading the 1.3 L to meet BS6 emission norms but globally this engine already meets the Euro 6 emission norms, so it will be much easier. Earlier a test mule of Ertiga Tour variant was spotted with diesel engine in New Delhi and it comes with a 6-speed manual transmission, which suggests that the engine could be 1.5 L diesel engine instead of the 1.3 L unit as it had only come with a 5-speed unit.
Another reason for the return of the diesel engine is that most of the competitors are offering diesel engine across the portfolio as Maruti didn’t expect this to happen. Even though diesel engine volume has come down in the hatchback segment, buyers still prefer the diesel over petrol in sedan, MPV and SUV segments. Maruti did offer CNG across various model but the lack of availability across the country hampered the sales.
