Swaraj Baggonkar Moneycontrol News
Tractor and sports utility vehicle specialist Mahindra & Mahindra is building a family of diesel and petrol engines that will cater to new generation vehicles, and will make changes to its existing models.
The Mumbai-based company is working on a variety of engines ranging from a single cylinder 600cc unit to a 2.0 litre 4 cylinder turbo-charged unit. The new engines, some of which have been codenamed D15, D20 (diesel) and G20 (petrol), will pave the way for M&M’s upgrade to Bharat Stage VI (BS-VI) standards, sources said. BS-VI norms will be implemented from April 1, 2020, and will incorporate strict norms especially for diesel vehicles.
While the diesel portfolio will see the addition to two new engines, the petrol family will get expanded to 4 engines by 2020. The company started working on the new-gen petrol engines two years back, when diesel vehicles came under intense scrutiny from the authorities over pollution.
Apart from the two new launches that will take place later this year, three full model changes will be done by 2020. On of the vehicles to be launched in 2018 is codenamed U321, which is powered by a 1.5 litre diesel engine. The company is expected to launch a petrol variant of the same SUV in 2019.
As opposed to media reports, the U321 will be priced positioned below the XUV500, in the same price band as the Mahindra Scorpio. This will allow the company to take on current best seller Maruti Suzuki Ertiga in the budget segment and the Toyota Innova Crysta in the premium segment.
Another vehicle codenamed S201 will be launched around September and could feature both petrol and diesel variants. The S201, which will be a compact SUV rivaling the Tata Nexon, will be priced between the KUV100 and the TUV300.
A 3-cylinder 1.2 litre petrol, MPFI engine will be seen in models codenamed S102 and S106. While a 4-cylinder 1.5 litre petrol MPFI engine will be seen in models codenamed U322 and U350.
The petrol-powered 2.2 litre 4-cylinder mHawk engine, which is seen in the Scorpio and XUV500, will probably get replaced by a more powerful (160 kW) 2 litre, 4-cylinder TGDI engine. All the new petrol engines from M&M are geared towards higher power delivery. The diesel variants may see no changes in power.
With the new launches M&M is trying hard to recoup some of the lost market share in the utility vehicle segment where new comers like Maruti Suzuki, Hyundai, Renault and Tata Motors have gained market shares through new launches.
During the April-February period, M&M logged a growth of 5 percent in the passenger vehicle (PV) segment, which was below the industry growth of 8 percent, according to data supplied by the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers. The company clocked sales of 2.22 lakh during the same period, becoming the third largest PV brand after Maruti Suzuki and Hyundai.
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