The BS-VI emission norms will come into effect from April 1, 2020 and this will mark the beginning of new emission regulations for the country as India will jump directly from BS-IV norms to the more stringent BS-VI norms. This will also mark a huge change in the vehicle market of India as several makers in the country will adopt new strategies or tweak older ones to continue to thrive in the new norms regime. While the largest carmaker of the country Maruti Suzuki has already announced its intention to stay away from the diesel cars in the market when BS-VI emission norms kick in, at least initially. Other makers like Tata, Honda, and Hyundai have announced that they intend to continue the production of diesel powered cars in the market. The makers are taking a call on production of diesel cars in the market because the new emission norms will make the production of diesel cars significantly more expensive than the petrol counterparts and this cost will be passed on to customers, thereby making diesel cars markedly more expensive than the petrol models. Now, Japanese giant Toyota has announced that the company will continue the production of diesel cars in the Indian market and will update their vehicles in the country to meet the upcoming stringent BS-VI emission norms.
The vice chairman of TKM spoke to a leading wire agency of India and stated that the diesel vehicles still command a great demand in the Indian market. Therefore, the company will continue the production of diesel engine cars for the Indian market. There were speculations that the Japanese maker would stop the production of diesel-powered vehicles in India and focus on the petrol and petrol-hybrid models only. However, this clarification from the vice chairman of the brand ought to put stop to such speculations. Toyota has recently put in an investment in its Indian plant, which will be used to manufacture the new compliant diesel engines in the market.
What should be noted here is that Toyota’s leading products in the market -- Innova Crysta and the Fortuner -- both sell an overwhelming majority of their units in the diesel version. Diesel version makes up for around 82% of the two models from the maker. Although this ratio falls down to half for the private car industry, 50% of sales is still a huge number and the company will not want to disappoint a large base of its consumers in the market.