Tuesday, December 22, 2015
By Kamal Swami
M&M to bring petrol variants of Scorpio and XUV 500
The interim decision of honorable Supreme Court to ban operation of vehicles below 2000cc engine displacement capacity in Delhi NCR region has compelled all major car makers to re-design their development strategy. This decision has affected renowned car makers like M&M, Tata Motors and Mercedes Benz. But the most affected car maker among these makers is domestic car maker M&M and therefore now car maker is speculating to bring the petrol variants of best selling SUV’s Scorpio and XUV 500 in Indian car market. The diesel vehicles more than fifteen years old have already been on the target of traffic authorities responsible for emergence of pollutant elements in the atmosphere.
Although all these manufacturers reacted differently on this decision for instance M&M said that they will work on some other interesting strategy to reach its customers, German car maker Mercedes Benz expressed its concerns for its investment strategies in Indian car market. As far as Mahindra is concerned this decision seems to be some fortunate for company as recently domestic car has exhibited its interest towards introduction of petrol engines. The first vehicle in this series was recently unveiled KUV100 which is energized with new mFalcon 1.2 litre VVT petrol engine boosting the power of 82 bhp and delivers fuel efficient performance.
Commenting on the interim decision of Supreme Court " Dr. Pawan Goenka, Executive Director, M&M said "Downsizing the engines is one way of looking at it, but we will have to take care that neither the performance, ride quality or the power that it generates is affected. After all people buy an SUV from Mahindra for those qualities”. Dr. Goenka also said that the problem of air pollution is undoubtedly serious problem and needs to be solved out properly. Revealing about company’s future strategy Dr. Goenka said that apart from launching new vehicles company is also working on bringing petrol variants of Scorpio and XUV 500 soon in Indian car market also. It would be interested to know that car maker is already exporting petrol variant of Scorpio energized with 2.2 litre MPFI petrol unit to various countries across the world. However before bringing petrol variants of these products in India car maker will check the feasibility and if it feels suitable soon you will find Scorpio and XUV 500 available in petrol variants.
