[swiftnfurious]

High Points:

- Hyundai launches the i10 Blue Drive LPG.

- The LPG variant is priced Rs 27,630 more than the existing petrol model.

- The LPG kit is factory-fitted.

- The ex-showroom Delhi prices for the i10 Era (1.1 ltr) is Rs 416,144, while the i10 Magna (1.1 ltr) is priced at Rs 430,659.

- Tank capacities : Petrol (35 litre) and LPG (34 litre).

- The LPG kit in the i10 Blue Drive is impact resistant and approved by the DOE (Department of Explosives). It is tested and certified by ARAI (Automotive Research Association of India). The factory-fitted LPG system in the i10 is backed by a 2 year manufacturer warranty.

[amtak]

it is indeed a good news. Those who wanted to buy the I10 but didnt buy it because of fuel prices, may atleast consider it now.

[diesel_power]

What is the cost of LPG per liter??
Does installing LPG affect the performance of the car, in terms of engine life, mileage?
How about the maintenance cost as compared to petrol.?

[dar3dev|l]

From the information it looks like they are mating LPG with IRDE engine and not Kappa2 !
So does that mean LPG/CNG is not compatible with Kappa2 ?

[90BHP]

Originally Posted by diesel_power

What is the cost of LPG per liter??
Does installing LPG affect the performance of the car, in terms of engine life, mileage?
How about the maintenance cost as compared to petrol.?

The cost of LPG per litre is about 44-45 Rs per litre it varies by city.
The above price is for Mumbai.

LPG is a better fuel for your engine as compared to CNG as it is liquid based. Hence, the engine isn't essentially dry when it is on LPG however, it is still advisable to burn some petrol in it from time to time.

I used a Wagon R LPG before this & it gave me about 10-11 Kms per Litre in city. On the highway I used to get 14-15 Kms per liter quite easily.

And the good part is unlike CNG, LPG takes lesser space so you don't really loose a lot of boot space. A typical LPG tank can occupy 22-24 litres of LPG whereas the maximum capacity of a CNG is around 14-16 Kg. Now that is a serious hinderance as you have to keep filling up almost once each week as the net distance you can travel on a full tank is only about 200-250 Kms maximum. Consider this, on a diesel car with decent performance & full AC you can get almost 650-700 Kms per full tank.

The fuel is all about being cost effective performance wise it is still not even close to diesel or petrol. There will be a lag when you are fully loaded and switching off the AC helps a lot. The car is quite smoke free you won't ever see black soot on your exhaust like diesel.

Maintenance costs are similar to petrol cars, if you have a factory fitted LPG else, there are complications here & there.
Mainly with respect to the fuel filter. BTW I had installed a K&N in my car and that improved my performance marginally.

HOWEVER, that said the biggest drawback of this alternate fuel is that it is not used commercially as the cost per Km, though lower than petrol, is still high. Around 4-4.5 Rs per Km. The reason for this it is after all a cooking fuel which is used by the common PUBLIC making it easy for the government to add on levies & taxes as they wish. Now, when I bought my Wagon R Duo in 2007 the price of a litre of LPG was 26.30 which now in 4 years has almost doubled. No fuel not even petrol has become this expensive in this duration. This made me move away from my original choice to a DIESEL !!! Go Diesel...

[deep_bang]

Pricing LPG variant at 27k more than the petrol one is indeed a very good move. I used to have a LPG kit installed on my Santro years back and I had calculated the break even price to be around 20k kms then.

[RSR]

This is a long overdue but very welcome move from Hyundai

With petrol prices hovering at ridiculously high levels, people are moving away from petrol cars in general. The complications and issues arising out of fitting an aftermarket LPG kit also makes many stay away from this greener, cheaper fuel.

Factory-fitted LPG (and CNG) kits are the way forward for manufacturers if they want to sell decent numbers of their petrol cars. These are better in every way than aftermarket kits, and the warranty is not affected as well.

Still, I think this move is a case of too little, too late by Hyundai. They have chosen to offer only the 1.1 iRDE2 engine with LPG, completely omitting the 1.2 Kappa2 variants.

The bigger issue is the lack of a diesel engine. Factory-fitted LPG and CNG kits may be a way of stopping the fall in petrol car sales, but diesel is the way forward if one wants real sales.

Hyundai may be scoring a self-goal by not investing in a diesel engine plant now.

Prices of auto fuels in Chennai (sourced from the IndianOil website) are as follows:-

AutoGas (Auto LPG) - Rs. 43.64

Petrol (Gasoline) - Rs. 70.38

Diesel - Rs. 43.95

[Th!ru]

Does the factory fitted LPG kits mean they are part of the insurance as well, apart from being warranty-proof as rightly pointed out by RSR ? If so, it makes better sense to go for it than any other third party LPG kits. Nice move by Hyundai, these guys really know how to sell a car. No wonder this option is only available with the 1.1 as most of the i10 buyers go for the kappa now, they are trying to increase the sales of the 1.1 engines, with less r&d cost as they already have a proven 1.1 santro LPG

[allwheeldrive]

I think this i10 LPG may be the second step towards discontinuing Santro, the first step of course being the launch of EON few months back.

[anandpadhye]

Originally Posted by 90BHP

LPG is a better fuel for your engine as compared to CNG as it is liquid based. Hence, the engine isn't essentially dry when it is on LPG

LPG is in liquid form only when it's inside the tank - pressurised. When it gets out of the tank (and enters the combustion chamber), it's vaporised.
The engine definately runs dry with LPG - compared to petrol.

Anyways, factory fitted gas kit is always the best so this i10 is another good option in the small car market. It's time they lauch all sedans with LPG/CNG factory kits. It's actually more convinient to run sedans on LPG/CNG as they have decent boot space to sacrifice from and generally bigger engines to accomodate lower energy levels of LPG/CNG, IMO.

[Blue Thunder]

If the AT variant also comes with LPG, this would be good economic sense to me for daily office drive.

[ajay_satpute]

Even though this is a good move by Hyundai to attract more customers, I have my reservations against the LPG kits. I know of atleast 5 cases of car blazed in fire due to leakage from the LPG kit. One of those 5 cars had a company fitted kit and rest were after market jobs.

Also, the ever increasing price of LPG doesn't make it the BEST alternate fuel source IMHO. Secondly, I still think that our car companies do not have/use the best LPG/CNG systems in terms of design and safety. Existing users can comment better on this.

The best green car available in India is Toyota Prius, but its way too expensive as of now(~25 lacs INR). Hope the costs come down some day and every car has an optional green model for us, customers.

[S_U_N]

Originally Posted by anandpadhye

It's time they lauch all sedans with LPG/CNG factory kits. It's actually more convinient to run sedans on LPG/CNG as they have decent boot space to sacrifice from and generally bigger engines to accomodate lower energy levels of LPG/CNG, IMO.

Very thoughtful points, Anand. I hope manufacturers think along these lines.
Cedia was available with LPG option some time back, but now that is stopped too.

[rohan_iitr]

Originally Posted by anandpadhye

It's time they lauch all sedans with LPG/CNG factory kits. It's actually more convinient to run sedans on LPG/CNG as they have decent boot space to sacrifice from and generally bigger engines to accomodate lower energy levels of LPG/CNG, IMO.

IIRC, Hyundai Accent has been available with factory fitted LPG since a long time.

Rohan

[ajay_satpute]

Originally Posted by anandpadhye

It's time they lauch all sedans with LPG/CNG factory kits. It's actually more convinient to run sedans on LPG/CNG as they have decent boot space to sacrifice from and generally bigger engines to accomodate lower energy levels of LPG/CNG, IMO.

Maruti already has SX4 running on CNG for some time now. But, I have driven the SX4 green/Eco with the CNG mode and the power delivery completely falls flat (reduction of 15-20 horses approx). However, its good for B2B city drives.