Soon Petrol Engines Will Be Offered For All Mahindra Cars

Apart from the KUV100, all other cars from Mahindra come with a diesel engine only. The strategy worked well for them as the Scorpio, the Bolero and the XUV500 bagged good sales figures over the years. However, Mahindra has now observed a paradigm shift in customer's choice, particularly in the hatchback and compact sedan segments. With a gradual decrease in difference of diesel and petrol fuel prices, customers are now opting for petrol powered cars over the diesel counterparts for their cheaper initial cost and easier to maintain aspects. Additionally, the diesel ban in Delhi-NCR has is an added concern for the Indian car manufacturer, wherein a car with an engine capacity equal to or greater than 2000cc is banned for registration. To address this, Mahindra will offer petrol engines on their entire fleet of cars from 2018.

“Any product that we launch from a year after will come with a petrol engine. We are currently working on a 1.5-litre petrol engine. So the petrol engines powering the future vehicles will be either of the three: 1.2-litre, 1.5-litre or 2.0-litre,” said Pawan Goenka, executive director, Mahindra & Mahindra. To explain this move, he further added that the demand for the petrol-powered KUV100 was more than it was anticipated by Mahindra.

Recently, Mahindra launched the 1.99-litre diesel engine in the XUV500 and the Scorpio for the Delhi-NCR region. 

A report from SIAM (Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers) revealed that during the first quarter of this fiscal year, there was a 3 per cent decline (down from 44 per cent to 41 per cent) in the diesel vehicles’ market share, as compared to the corresponding quarter last year. The petrol-powered vehicles now have an increased share of 59 per cent (up from 56 per cent) over the same comparison.

Not only the diesels are more expensive to buy, technically they are more harmful to the environment as well. Moreover, cars with diesel engines are more expensive to service. All manufacturers are pushing for petrol-powered cars to meet the increasing demand.