Tata Tiago and Tigor Diesel Variants To Go Out of Production Come April 2020

Over the past few years, Tata Motors has really turned a corner, first it was Tiago and Tigor and then came Nexon, and now Harrier. The reason we are talking about Tata today is that the company has made an announcement recently. The announcement says that the company will now stop the production of the diesel models of Tiago hatchback and Tigor sedan.

The move does not comes out of the blue, rather it has been a long time in making. The soon to be enforced BS-VI emission norms make it compulsory for manufacturers to update their engines as per the new directive. This update is required because the new rules seek to reduce the emission from vehicles. In wake of the new directive, the company stated that its 1.1-liter diesel engine found on Tiago and Tigor does not fall under the compliance norms and hence the production of said models with the engine will be halted come 1 April 2020.

However, this is not all, Tata could have worked on the engine and made it compliant. However, the company is looking at the current subpar sales of diesel models of Tiago and Tigor. Looking at the figures the company decided to forego making the engine BS-VI compliant, or developing a new engine because this would lead to the cost of models being pushed upward. Low sales and a certainty of price hike led the manufacturer to scraping the diesel variants of Tiago and Tigor altogether.

Taking a look at the sales of diesel models of the two cars, diesel models comprised only 14 percent of Tiago’s sales and 15 percent of Tigor’s sales (April 2018 - January 2019). Making a new engine or working on the old one was simply not viable for Tata at this point.

The petrol model of Tiago as well as Tigor will continue to be sold. Both the vehicles have similar 3-pot 1.2-liter engine with an output rated at 84 Bhp-115 Nm.

2018 also saw Tata bringing out hot version of both the vehicles. Named Tigor JTP and Tiago JTP the duo continue to be the cheapest hot or performance models in their segment in India so far. As far as their mechanicals are concerned Tigor JTP and Tiago JTP are powered by a 1.2 liter turbo petrol engine, the same one found on Nexon rated for 114 Bhp-150 Nm.

There are reports that the manufacturer is about to update the Tiago hatchback and is working on a facelift model of the same. Looking at the decision to stop making diesel model of the same, there is a likely possibility that Tiago facelift model could be offered only with a petrol engine.

Come April 2020 and BS-VI norms, and the market will witness quite a few changes as companies will do away with lower displacement diesel engines due to economic feasibility. While the bigger displacement engines might be updated, some are sure to be discontinued as well.