Maruti Suzuki To Discontinue All Diesel Cars From April 2020

The future of diesel-powered vehicles has been a matter of debate in India in recent times. Today, the country’s leading automobile manufacturer, Maruti Suzuki, has announced in a press conference that it won't be selling any vehicles running on diesel fuel from the 1 April 2020. This move includes the Maruti Ciaz 1.5-litre diesel variant which has just gone on sale in the market.

Maruti Suzuki will phase out all diesel models including the recently-launched Maruti Ciaz 1.5-litre diesel in India.

While the BSVI emission norms have been around the corner, Maruti Suzuki’s oil burners, as things stand, seems not to be confident enough to fully upgrade to the stricter norms. Currently, the Indo-Japanese auto company is offering two diesel motor options in its range including the Fiat-sourced 1.3-litre MultiJet engine and a brand new 1.5-litre DDis four-cylinder unit which just debuted in the facelifted Ciaz. The 1.3-litre DDis engine has been offered on the Maruti Swift, Dzire, Baleno, Ciaz, Ertiga, S-Cross and the top-selling Vitara Brezza. This statement means that all diesel variants of these above Maruti Suzuki products will be, for sure, ceased to exist in the immediate future.

All diesel variants of all Maruti cars will be ceased to exist from April 1, 2020.

Given that around 30% of Maruti Suzuki’s total sales figures come from diesel-fueled cars, this announcement is obviously a big move of the company during the present context. It is yet to know how Maruti Suzuki works out how to fill the gap after the elimination of diesel vehicles from its portfolio but to maintain its sole position in the domestic market, there's something that must be done accordingly.

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Various reports suggest that the company is developing a new BS6 1.5-litre diesel engine for its future products. In fact, the outgoing 1.5-litre diesel configuration has received an investment of more than Rs 1,000 crore. However, before it works full well to comply with the BSVI standards, the costs of the engine should be reckoned since we’re about to see the entrance of the “super-stringent” Real Driving Emission Regulation all set to come into effect no later than 2023 that will certainly jack the costs up. To the point of that, Maruti Suzuki will have to make sure the price difference between petrol and diesel cars isn’t too large as well, otherwise, the demand for diesel models could be hurt badly.

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