Honda City, Maruti Ciaz Buyers Prefer Petrol Variant Over Diesel

• Published On: 1 July 2019
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India's largest automaker Maruti Suzuki declared some time ago that it will stop offering diesel-powered cars in India after April 2020. A few other manufacturers also have the same intentions once the new norms come into effect.

With the Indian Government preparing to implement new emission norms in the country from April 2020, all carmakers have begun devising strategies to revamp their product line. India's largest automaker Maruti Suzuki declared some time ago that it will stop offering diesel-powered cars in India after April 2020. A few other manufacturers also have the same intentions once the new norms come into effect. However, this has led to industry experts and observers asking questions as to how this would affect the sales of vehicles. Today, we look at the petrol and diesel sales of the top players in the C-segment sedan, which includes Maruti Suzuki Ciaz, Honda City, and Hyundai Verna.

Contrary to other segments like sub-4-meter SUVs where diesel sales are higher than petrol powered cars, the scene is quite the opposite in the C-segment sedan category. Almost 69 percent cars sold in this segment are powered by petrol engines. Talking about Honda City, the Japanese manufacturer sold 34,647 units of petrol variants while the sales of diesel variants stood at 6,425 in the 2018-2019. This means that the petrol engine constituted 84 percent of the total sales of Honda City. In the same time, Maruti sold 35,001 units of petrol Ciaz while sales of diesel Ciaz stood at 11,168.  

Coming to Hyundai Verna, the sales figures are slightly different. The South Korean manufacturer sold 19,823 petrol variants and 19.745 diesel variants. This means almost 50% distribution of sales. Overall, it can be said that the non-availability of a diesel engine would not affect sales of C-segment sedans much. As for Maruti Suzuki, the company said that there remains a possibility of it bringing back diesel cars after April 2020 if the demand for it persists. However, it will only be limited to top models like Ciaz and S-Cross among others. Honda and Hyundai will continue offering diesel engines after new emission norms are enforced but these engines will be revamped to meet new regulations.

In India, Hyundai Verna and Maruti Ciaz are offered with two diesel engine options and one petrol engine. Meanwhile, the rival Honda City gets one petrol and one diesel engine option. All of them come with automatic transmission options as well. However, Honda City and Maruti Suzuki Ciaz only get an auto box with the petrol variants while the Verna gets an auto box only on the 1.6-litre diesel engine option.