Hyundai and Mahindra lead the chart in terms of diesel car sales, while Maruti Suzuki reaped huge success with its petrol vehicles
In April 2020, the BS6 emission norms came into effect in India. The new regulations were put in place to reduce vehicular pollution, by upgrading the fuels as well as the cars running said fuels. For petrol cars, the change wasn’t too drastic, but for diesel vehicles, a lot of updates and upgrades had to be made, which were extremely expensive.
Nowadays, a diesel vehicle can cost up to Rs. 2 lakh more than an equivalent petrol vehicle. A lot of car manufacturers concluded that in a price-sensitive market like India, the high price tags of diesel passenger cars would discourage buyers away from their vehicles. The predicted sales of diesel vehicles were quite low, and hence a lot of diesel vehicles were discontinued.
Brands like Maruti Suzuki, Volkswagen, Skoda, Renault, and Nissan have discontinued diesel engines entirely. Some manufacturers, like Tata, Honda, and Toyota offer diesel engines only on select models in their range, mostly the premium ones. Others, like Hyundai, Kia, Ford, etc, are continuing as before, offering diesel options on their smaller cars as well.
Looking at the sales figures, we can see that diesel vehicles are still responsible for generating significant sales for manufacturers that offer them. Hyundai and its sister company Kia managed to retail a total of 27,280 diesel cars from April to July 2020, which amounted to 45 per cent of all diesel vehicles sold in that period. Toyota and Ford had more success with their diesel vehicles than their petrol ones during the same period.
Homegrown UV maker Mahindra also sold more diesel vehicles than petrol-powered ones in India. The carmaker doesn’t have a lot of petrol models in its range at the moment, which is the primary reason for these figures. Once the ‘mStallion’ engines are introduced, we’ll truly get to see what the buyers prefer. As for Tata, it generated decent sales from its diesel vehicles, but its petrol models were much more popular.
| Petrol Vs Diesel Car Sales – April to July 2020 | ||
| Manufacturer | Petrol Sales | Diesel Sales |
| Maruti | 1,62,744 | 0 |
| Hyundai | 47,121 | 19,236 |
| Tata | 25,216 | 3,754 |
| Renault | 12,809 | 0 |
| Kia | 9,394 | 8,044 |
| Mahindra | 9,260 | 13,341 |
| Honda | 5,810 | 1,346 |
| Volkswagen | 4,801 | 0 |
| Toyota | 3,296 | 7,549 |
| MG | 2,559 | 2,005 |
| Ford | 2,538 | 4,609 |
| Skoda | 2,220 | 0 |
| Nissan | 1,736 | 0 |
| FCA (Jeep) | 350 | 399 |
| Total Sales | 2,89,854 | 60,283 |
For Honda, diesel cars sales were quite significant, almost one-fourth of its entire sales volume. MG Motors had slightly more success with its petrol vehicles, but its diesel cars were only a shade behind. For Jeep, the gap between the sales of petrol and diesel models of the Compass sales was negligible, resulting in near equal sales.
With the help of these figures, we can see that diesel vehicles still continue to attract a lot of customers, even after the added expenses. That said, the Indian market is dominated by petrol vehicles, which constituted 82 per cent of total car sales between April and July 2020. A lot of new launches have been lined-up for our market, and manufacturers are also paying more attention to electric/hybrid vehicles now. It would be interesting to see how the future of the automobile industry in India pans out.