We’re just months away from the stringent Bharat Stage 6 (BS6) norms, which will come into effect from April 1st, 2020. These norms have catapulted India a couple of generations ahead in terms of vehicular tail pipe emissions: from BS4 to BS6. Car makers across India are readying up BS6 variants of their existing line-ups, and this includes Mahindra. The utility vehicle giant has announced that it would offer petrol engines on SUVs such as the Scorpio and XUV500. the recently launched Marazzo MPV will also get a petrol engine. While the Marazzo is likely to get a 1.6 liter turbo petrol engine, the Mahindra XUV500 and Scorpio are likely to get 2 liter-4 cylinder turbo petrol units. In the past, Mahindra has offered 2.2 liter turbo petrol engines on both the XUV500 and Scorpio. However, poor sales of petrol engined models led to their discontinuation.
With the BS6 norms coming in and diesel engined cars likely to become pricier by Rs. 1-2 lakh, petrol powered cars may become attractive to many buyers, which is why Mahindra is developing petrol engines even for bigger vehicles like the Scorpio, XUV500 and Marazzo. Meanwhile, this is what Dr Pawan Goenka, President of Mahindra”s automotive division, had to tell Car&Bike about the Scorpio, XUV500 and Marazzo going petrol,
We will not bring a diesel on the KUV100 but when it comes to cars like the Scorpio, XUV500 and Marazzo, I don’t see a major change between petrol and diesel sales. These vehicles would predominantly remain diesel for some time unless there is an artificial barrier that is put on buying of diesel. Mahindra is preparing for both diesel and petrol all these cars (Scorpio, XUV500, Marazzo).
Currently, the only in-house petrol engines offered by Mahindra are on the KUV100 and the XUV300 (discounting the petrol powered Verito that’s powered by a Renault engine). While the KUV100 uses a 1.2 liter-3 cylinder naturally asporated petrol engine with about 84 Bhp-115 Nm on tap, the XUV300 has a turbocharged version of this engine with 115 Bhp-200 outputs.
Mahindra has already been testing the BS6 versions of the XUV300 and KUV100’s petrol engines, and early next year, expect the BS6 versions of these SUVs to be launched in India. Mahindra is also likely to introduce the BS6 diesel variants of all its major vehicles early next year. In fact, many other automakers such as Maruti Suzuki and Kia Motors have already begun selling BS6 emission norms compliant cars. We’re just months away from other automakers following suit.
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