India’s largest carmaker Maruti Suzuki has already announced that it will no longer produce diesel engine cars in the BS-VI emission norms regime due to the higher cost of development of complaint engine. This move will be undertaken by the company at least in the initial phases of the BS-VI era as later the company may start producing diesel engine cars based on the demand of the market. However, as of now the news is that the company will not be making diesel engine cars come April 1, 2020. There have been recent reports that the company may be looking at the turbo petrol engine to replace the diesel engine in its cars. As of now, the only Maruti Suzuki car to offer a turbo petrol motor is the Baleno premium hatchback.
The RS trim of the Baleno hatchback comes with a 1L tri-cylinder turbo petrol engine rated to deliver 101 Bhp and 150 Nm and is considered the hotter version of the hatchback. The company has given the BoosterJet moniker to this turbo petrol engine. Transmission duties on the RS trim of Baleno are handled by a 5 speed manual gearbox. The turbo petrol engine also comes with direct injection technology that not only improves mileage but also produces more torque than the engines that do not come with turbo and direct injection. The improved mileage also lead to lower emissions from the engine.
Keeping the aforementioned benefits of the BoosterJet engine in mind, there are chances that the maker may also introduce the same engine on its models like the Swift, Ignis or even Dzire and Brezza. This engine will keep the customers who will miss the punchy torque of diesel engines happy, if not satisfied. However, all this remains mere speculation at this point as the company has not even hinted at the same as of now.
A spokesperson from the brand recently spoke about the matter to a leading daily and stated,
The primary reason for us to announce the discontinuation of our diesel vehicles is the extremely high cost of upgrading current BS4 diesel vehicles to BS6 compliant vehicles (by April 2020). The cost increase is expected to be in the range of over Rs. 1 lakh”. We have already introduced two of the popular high-volume models Alto and Baleno with the new BS-VI compliant variants. Progressively other petrol models in our range will be upgraded to BS-VI.
While this statement hints at the fact that the company is not willing to introduce the turbo petrol engine on its other models, the enthusiasts will be praying for the company to do the same as the punch delivered by diesel engines in the torque department can be somewhat made up for by the turbo petrol engines.