68% Hyundai Creta Buyers Preferred Diesel Version Over Petrol in FY2018-19

hyundai creta

A lot of SUV buyers still prefer diesel cars over their petrol counterpart, while the whole industry is shifting towards petrol powered cars

As India is getting ready to implement the new emission norms starting 1st April 2020 that will impact the diesel car sales largely because of the high cost of implementing BS-VI technology in the diesel engines, a couple of manufacturers have decided to shift away from the diesel cars, including Maruti Suzuki and Renault. However, there’s still a lot of interest in these cars, among the Indian buyers, especially those looking for an SUV and the mid-size SUV segment saw a similar trend.

Interestingly, only a few manufacturers offer a petrol engine in this segment. That being said, those offering a petrol motor are not seeing any favourable results. Case in point the most sold mid-SUV Hyundai Creta. Not only is Creta the leader in its segment, it is also a regular in the top 10 selling cars of India, which mostly has Maruti Suzuki products.

In the last Fiscal i.e. FY19, 68 percent of buyers preferred diesel Creta over the petrol model. A total of 1,24,300 units of Hyundai Creta were sold throughout the FY19, out of which a good 84,968 units were diesel-powered models and the rest 39,332 units were powered by the petrol engine.

hyundai creta sports 2019-1

In fact, the whole mid-SUV segment saw a massive alienation of buyers opting for diesel models over petrol cars. In all, 2,79,333 units of SUVs, mostly hovering in a price bracket of Rs 10-20 Lakh were sold, out of which a whopping 82 percent was that of diesel cars and 18 percent of petrol.

As for the Hyundai Creta itself, the engine options include only one petrol engine which is a 1.6-litre motor and two diesel engines – a 1.4 litre and a 1.6 litre motor. The Hyundai Creta competes against the Tata Harrier which is a diesel-only model.