Renault India will unveil a brand new turbocharged petrol engine for use in a range of cars sold in India. The petrol engine will be a 1 liter-3 cylinder unit – a downsized version of the 1.3 liter-4 cylinder SCe unit that Renault offers on a range of cars sold abroad, including the Duster compact SUV. The new turbo petrol engine could make as much as 95 Bhp of peak power, reports ACI.
This engine will first find its way into the Renault Triber’s engine bay, co-existing with the 1 liter naturally aspirated, three cylinder petrol engine. The turbo petrol engine is also expected to make it to the new sub-4 meter compact SUV that Renault India is developing. The new compact SUV, code-named HBC, is expected to be launched in 2020, and will use the same CMF-A platform as the Kwid and Triber.
The Triber currently uses a 1 liter-3 cylinder naturally aspirated petrol engine that it shares with the Kwid 1.0, but with a slight bump up on outputs: 72 Bhp-96 Nm. The Triber’s light weight means that this engine is just adequate for the 7 seater, but more power and torque would always be welcome, making the compact MPV a lot more sprightly, and safer on highway runs. A 5 speed AMT will soon be offered with the naturally aspirated (non-turbo) petrol engine of the Triber. It remains to be seen if the AMT option is also offered with the turbo petrol engine.
95 Bhp of peak power from the turbo petrol engine, with about 120-130 Nm of peak torque, should make it more attractive to a lot of buyers. The 7 seat compact MPV could also get a CNG-Petrol dual fuel version of the new engine given the fact that Renault will dump diesel wholly from April 2020. A CNG option would make the Triber attractive to buyers in certain parts of India such as Delhi, Pune and Mumbai seeking to use the compact MPV mainly on city streets.
Launched 3 months ago, the Renault Triber has turned out to be a massive hit for the French automaker. Sharp pricing, an attractive design and modular seating that allows high flexibility in space utilization are the three major selling points of this compact MPV. The Triber is now the best selling car in Renault’s line-up, and November 2019 saw the compact MPV outsell even the cheaper Kwid hatchback, clocking over 6,000 units in sales. The compact MPV’s top end variant offer 4 airbags, ABS, a reverse parking camera, reverse parking sensors, removable seats in the third row, a foldable middle row, AC vents for the middle and third rows, a touchscreen infotainment system with Apple CarPlay, Android Auto and GPS navigation, projector headlamps and powered wing mirrors, as key features.
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