R C Bhargava, Chairman Maruti Suzuki
Starting April 2020, all cars sold in India have to have BS6 compliant engines. Apart from Maruti Suzuki, Hyundai and Kia Motors have also introduced BS6 compliant vehicles in India.
Maruti Suzuki, the leading carmaker in India in terms of sales, has announced that within 7 months of the launch of its first BS6 petrol model in India, it has sold a total of 3 lakh BS6 compliant cars in the country. Out of this 3 lakh, 1 lakh alone was sold during the month of October 2019. At the moment, Maruti Suzuki has the largest portfolio of BS6 compliant petrol vehicle in the Indian market. In April 2019, Maruti Suzuki introduced the BS6 compliant models of the Baleno and the Alto. In addition to these, the list of BS6 models on sale from the carmaker includes Swift, Dzire, S-Presso, Ertiga, XL6 and WagonR (1.0-litre and 1.2-litre). Starting April 2020, all cars sold in India have to have BS6 compliant engines. Apart from Maruti Suzuki, Hyundai and Kia Motors have also introduced BS6 compliant vehicles in India. However, their respective BS6 portfolio is not as wide as that of the Indo-Japanese automaker.
However, Maruti Suzuki does not have any BS6 compliant diesel vehicle in its line-up. However, the Kia Seltos does get a BS6 compliant diesel engine. Maruti Suzuki says that the BS6 compliant petrol vehicles can run on BS4 fuel with no issues. Currently, only a handful of Indian cities are available with BS6 grade fuel. The rest continue to provide the older grade fuel. However, the same is likely to get the new fuel ahead of the April 2020 deadline.
Shashank Srivastava, Executive Director (M&S), Maruti Suzuki India Limited said, “We are delighted to announce that Maruti Suzuki crossed the milestone sales figure of 3 lakh BS6 vehicles in a short span of 7 months. Of this, close to one lakh vehicles were sold during the month of October owing to the festive demand. These figures are very encouraging and reflect on Maruti Suzuki cars being preferred choice of people, and indicate towards trust placed in our products. With the largest range of BS6 vehicles on offer, Maruti Suzuki cars have garnered widespread acceptance.” He added, “Initially, there was some confusion in the minds of the consumers regarding the transition from BS4 to BS6. To provide clarity, we rolled out several awareness initiatives to communicate the advantages of adopting BS6 technology. These have helped us build confidence reflecting in the overall response to our BS6 range, which is very encouraging. We have observed that customers across cities have become more environmentally conscious and are willing to upgrade to vehicles with better technology which are environment-friendly.”