[oxyzen]

Originally Posted by supremeBaleno

Well, you just happen to be among the 0.01% diesel buyers who value performance. The remaining 99.99% don't give a damn about anything other than running-costs (aka cheap diesel).

When We were scouting for a balanced FTD sedan within 10L, the only cars shortlisted were T-Jet and VentoD.
City & VernaD lacked handling. Fiesta 1.6 was old.
And trust me running cost was not an issue. (Fuel from office). But still we chose VentoD over the T-Jet. The way Vento pushes you at the back is remarkable. The T-Jet being one of the better petrol engines still did not have the same midrange punch. + the lag in T-jet was more noticable.
So yes you can count me on that .01% of yours.

Originally Posted by supremeBaleno

To give another example, notice how manufacturers skimp on safety features on diesels and still people lap it up ? When these customers value their own life lesser than cheap fuel, do you think there is any place for performance or FTD there ?

That is something the manufacturers are at fault to. And they have realised it big time. Expect Swift to come up with the much needed Zdi variant.

Originally Posted by fast&furious

Easier to drive fast! What's that?You press a button and the car just takes off?

Yes something like that.
That is called changing the angle of the right foot.

[vina]

Originally Posted by supremeBaleno

^^^ Indeed. It will open up a Rsxxxxxx lakhs diesel scam.

Raising price of diesel will increase inflation.
Dual pricing of diesel would lead to corruption.

Options would be to make road-tax annual for diesel cars and make it so high so as to be a deterrent. Have this applicable for all the diesels currently on the road too. Also throw in an excise-duty hike for diesel cars to make initial cost high. And have these uniform across the country - else you will see all diesel cars sporting Pondy/Chandigarh plates.

I hope you spare existing diesel owners like me

The problem with annual tax is in the last line - states will have to implement it and why should they? they don't bear the burden of the subsidy in fact most of the taxes on fuel actually go to the state - they have their own taxes plus center shares its taxes with states.

They can keep criticising center without doing anything themselves - and that's what they do right now too.


Excise duty hike will be a big deterrent to begin with, another thing that center can do is make road worthiness certification mandatory (perhaps every three years for diesel and every 5 years for petrol) - govt. corruption or no corruption - for many people this headache will be enough to dissuade them if the overall money advatange is not very large to begin with (and for most people actually it is not) not to speak of the fact that this will destroy diesel resale prices.

[fast&furious]

Increasing the road tax of diesel cars is a good idea and it will be even more effective if the Govt. reduce the road tax of petrol cars .

[Poitive]

Some thoughts:

• Smaller cars make a significant number of sales in the country.
• The roughly 1L difference is proportionally very big, to keep people onto a petrol, unless they have a lot of usage for a small car.
• As mentioned before, there are segments which will have less usage on a car - typically small cars.
• Small petrol cars are in no danger.
• Over time, with the improvement of MRTS and with roads getting more clogged, the usage of cars may reduce for some. Especially small car users.
• Either the gap between petrol and diesel will reduce (unlikely) or there will be more levies on being with a diesel car (higher taxes, insurance, etc), thereby making petrol cars even more viable.
• Reduction in demand may reduce price of petrol cars further in the short-medium term.
• In the long term, there may be more money put into diesel technologies than petrol. But are markets like India where this anomaly of such difference in running a petrol and diesel large enough? Large enough to impact global technology design in a big way? Maybe not.

Petrol driven vehicles don't seem to be in any danger of dying out. Not from Diesels. With newer technologies like Electric cars and Hybrids - with time, maybe.

What may suffer is the larger petrol cars. But that too is questionable.

[theMAG]

1. Petrol SUVs never sold in India - fuel price notwithstanding

2. The current disconnect is due to forced-moderation in diesel rates and artificial inflation in petrol rates. Logically, this gap cannot continue too much into the future for various reasons.

3. I personally believe its a matter of time before there is some rationalization either in petrol/diesel fuel/vehicle rates.

4. For occasional car users using company/public transport (majority of city residents), a petrol car would still be more economical than a diesel.