Ford India To Continue Selling Diesel Cars In India

Currently, many carmakers in India are toying with the idea of pulling off the diesel engines from their production line owing to the high expenses on upgrading to the BSVI emission norms. Ford India, however, has recently announced that it won’t be giving up on the diesel-powered vehicles despite the fact that the BSVI norms are about to knock on the doors next year.

Ford has recently revealed its determination on diesel-powered vehicles in the Indian market regardless of the coming of BSVI emission norms.

Needless to say, the introduction of BS-VI emission standards will certainly jack up the prices of passenger vehicles in India by around 8% to 10%. Nevertheless, Ford India said it's totally ready for the implementation of the new norms and confirmed that they would continue to offer the diesel power choice to the Indian buyers before the April 1, 2020 deadline. The American auto major also announced that it is all set to bring on a range of BSVI-compliant diesel-fueled powertrains prior to the emission norms rollout. Along with it, the BSVI-ready petrol models are also in the works to come to us sooner rather than later.

“Ford- with the introduction of Ecosport in 2013-was among the first to bring petrol engines into the consideration set of UV buyers. To complement the diesel technology, we will continue to deepen the portfolio of diesel engines and offer more BS-VI compliant petrol engines options to our consumers," said Vinay Raina, Ford India Executive Director, Marketing, Sales and Service.

At present, Ford India is offering three diesel powertrain options across its range including a 1.5-litre 4-cylinder engine powering the Ford Figo, Ford Aspire or Ford Ecosport together with a 2.2-litre 4-cylinder motor and a larger 3.2-litre 5-cylinder diesel unit which can be found under the Ford Endeavour’s hood. It is yet to confirm when these above engines could be upgraded to the tougher emission norms.

Ford has already made three diesel engines available in its lineup. A BSVI compliant 1.5-litre diesel motor is said to come soon.

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As reported earlier, the country’s leading passenger car manufacturer, Maruti Suzuki has announced that it will retire all diesel vehicles from its products lineup no later than April 2020. As things stand, this move is due to the huge increase in costs to make the diesel models compliant with the new regulations. Prices of those vehicles, especially the small cars will be, of course, hiked up accordingly that will for sure drive them beyond the Indian buyers’ reach. However, it is suggested that Maruti Suzuki will switch back with a BSVI compliant 1.5-litre diesel engine to fulfil the demands for diesel vehicles.

Apparently, the transition from BSIV to BSVI emission rules is raising doubts about the future of diesel vehicles in India. Many automotive companies have chosen to drop their small diesel engines instead of upgrading them to meet the stricter standards. Therefore, this decision of Ford is obviously going against the tide and extremely a big move. In another development, Ford has also confirmed that it is gearing up to launch a new Jeep Compass’s rivalling C-SUV as part of its alliance with Mahindra in the coming months and it is also BSVI ready.

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