With the news of different makers like Maruti Suzuki ditching the diesel engine models making headlines recently, Tata may take a different approach altogether. There are reports that the upcoming Altroz hatch from the company will come only in a diesel variant at the time of its launch. The Altroz is scheduled to be launched in India at around the middle months of the year. The diesel unit that can be present in the upcoming Tata car could be the 1.5L diesel unit that the company currently offers on its Nexon sub-4 meter compact SUV. This diesel unit is rated to produce 108 Bhp-260 Nm on the Nexon. There are reports indicating that the company may retune the engine to produce 92 Bhp and 201 Nm on the upcoming hatch. If the engine on Altroz is offered in the tuning of Nexon, it will be the most powerful in the segment and even if the company decides to go with the lower state of tune, the Altroz will still offer decent power in the segment. So far there are no reasons as to why the company will not offer the petrol variant of the Altroz at the time of the launch as it already has a turbo as well as non-turbo variant of the 1.2L petrol engine that it offers with the Tiago, Tigor and the Nexon in the market.
Amid the reports of carmakers moving away from diesel engines, the approach that Tata is taking is sure different. However, the company has already stated that it will move away from diesel engines once the new emission rules kick in, at least for the smaller cars. In recent news, makers like Maruti Suzuki have already announced that they will stop offering diesel engines in the market once BS-VI emission norms kick in, at least initially. Other makers like Mahindra are also busy developing new BS-VI compliant engines as it plans to discontinue the current engines that do not comply with the upcoming emission norms.
Talking about the Altroz, the company may eventually offer the 1.2L turbo petrol engine on the car in coming times. Maybe the company will start offering the engine on the car once it has been upgraded to comply with the upcoming BS-VI norms. Altroz is based on the 45X Concept that the company had presented at the Auto Expo last year. A near production model of the car was also displayed at the Geneva Motor Show in March 2019.
Altroz’s interiors are properly equipped and at the center of it sits an infotainment system in a floating style. As per the company, this unit will support Android Auto and Apple CarPlay. Apart from the usual control, the dashboard carries a pretty clutter free look. As per the norms of the segment, the steering has buttons with the usual array of controls. The instrument cluster in Altroz premium hatchback is a digital-analog unit. In the top model of Altroz, Tata will offer 4 airbags. Keeping in view the upcoming BNVSAP, while the lower models will get 2 airbags only, the top model will have 4 airbags as standard.