[Rajeevraj]

Came across the split of sales between Petrol and Diesel from Maruti for September 2016 and also for FY'16 up until now (April - September 2016).

Key Points:

• Overall for both September 2016 and for FY 2016, the balance is skewed almost 70:30 in favor of Petrol. This is not very surprising considering the petrol dominance has been making a comeback for some time now. In addition, the high volume sellers like Alto, Wagon R are petrol only models, so not much of a surprise.
  
• Ertiga and Ciaz are heavily skewed towards diesel, again not very surprising as both of them are SVHS equipped and hence tremendous VFM.
  
• Celerio diesel hardly sells, again not a surprise.
  
• Baleno is a major surprise with only 21% sales coming from diesel.
  
• Was surprised to see that for the Swift, petrol scores over the diesel and even the Dzire is almost 50-50.
  
• Brezza and S Cross obviously are diesel only, but pretty sure Maruti will be very keen to bring in Petrols.

Source: Autopunditz

[Chetan_Rao]

Originally Posted by Rajeevraj

.....Ertiga and Ciaz are heavily skewed towards diesel, again not very surprising as both of them are SVHS equipped and hence tremendous VFM.......

Not to forget the rather unimpressive 1.4L mill in their petrol avatars. Both cars are great practical choices for non-enthusiast drivers, let down badly by the bummer under the hood. I'd love to see the 1.0 Boosterjet become the standard petrol option in the 6-12 lac bracket for Suzuki.

[a4anurag]

Originally Posted by Chetan_Rao

Not to forget the rather unimpressive 1.4 mill in their petrol avatars.

Honestly speaking buddy, I liked the K14M on the Ertiga. It is a very understated performer for the average drivers (read not the pedal to metal style lovers).

My dad and his colleague bought the Ertiga's at the same time. My dad went for ZDi and he bought ZXi. I was pretty impressed with the engine when I drove it for 200 kms with 4 people on-board. I felt it would have been better had dad bought the ZXi instead of ZDi.

[GTO]

Quite enlightening, thanks for sharing! And when these numbers are from the market leader, we can safely assume that they indicate trends in the market.

Lets consider the 6-month average stats (instead of only September).

So, for the cars that have a diesel + petrol option, diesel is still very strong! On a Swift, it's over 40%, while for the Ciaz & Ertiga, it constitutes 2/3rds of sales (SHVS benefits anyone? ). Even the Dzire diesel makes 53% of total sales.

Surprised that such a small proportion of Baleno buyers are going for the diesel. Is Maruti actively pushing the petrol here?

The tractor Celerio? The lesser said, the better. I'm not surprised that the 2-cylinder pumpset got merely 6% of sales.

Originally Posted by a4anurag

liked the K14M on the Ertiga

I found the 1.4L petrol to be very mediocre (after spending 3 - 4 days with the Ciaz 1.4). Good driveability, but nothing else.

Originally Posted by Aditya

Driving the 1.4L Petrol

In summary, the 1.4 petrol does the job. It's competent in the city, but not on the highway. The Ciaz petrol isn't for enthusiasts, even though it meets the needs of its target (commuter) market.

[Axe77]

The Baleno sales make sense to me. Unlike Ciaz it's probably got a higher proportion of self drive owners. The fact that it's got a petrol AT probably is skewing the figures towards petrol.

The Ciaz on the other hand has more diesels perhaps since more likely to have chauffeur driven owners. SVHS plays its part too in addition I guess.

Swift doesn't have AT so probably it's a closer split between petrol and diesel.

[varunswnt]

Originally Posted by GTO

So, for the cars that have a diesel + petrol option, diesel is still very strong! On a Swift, it's over 40%, while for the Ciaz & Ertiga, it constitutes 2/3rds of sales (SHVS benefits anyone? ). Even the Dzire diesel makes 53% of total sales.

Surprised that such a small proportion of Baleno buyers are going for the diesel. Is Maruti actively pushing the petrol here?

In my opinion, higher percentage of diesel sales for Swift and Dzire are mostly owing to Taxi apps and Selfdrive companies. Nowadays, I see quite a good number of Dzire with Permit and Yellow plates. Also Swift diesel costs around price of petrol premium hatchbacks which also goes in its favour.

Baleno being sold solely for personal use explains the higher petrol sales. Premium diesel hatchbacks are costing 10+ lacs for top variants, this makes people to start thinking about cross shopping into Sedan or CSUV.

[King_pin09]

Very nice piece of information there, Rajeevraj. Thanks for sharing.

I am quite surprised to see Petrols stealing the sales over the Oil Burners for models such as Swift, Baleno and Ritz. I was of the impression, thus far, that the Swift stands synonymous to the 1.3 multi-jet as the oil burner, being far superior and economical than the competition. In fact the Swift DDis is quite popular among masses. Ritz being mechanically similar to the Swift was also expected to sell higher numbers in its diesel version (as against its petrol counterparts) on the same lines as of the Swift.

For others, the results are almost in line to the expectations.

[sandeepmohan]

Originally Posted by a4anurag

Honestly speaking buddy, I liked the K14M on the Ertiga

I second this. I too had my reservations about this engine which completely changed after travelling extensively in a yellow board Ertiga VVT. Most of the Ertiga cabs you see in Goa are petrols. The engine is refined, has sufficient grunt to move a loaded Ertiga (Should be better on the Ciaz), is economical and there is no doubt on the reliability for a Japanese motor. I don't like the noise that it makes on hard acceleration but that is something that rarely matters in real world use.

[GTO]

Guys, one more point to keep in mind is that Maruti will always actively push & market its own engines (e.g. K12) rather than one on which it has to pay royalties (1.3L MJD). Am sure that the marketing team, dealerships etc. are periodically reminded of this.

[SchumiFan]

Originally Posted by Axe77

The Ciaz on the other hand has more diesels perhaps since more likely to have chauffeur driven owners. SVHS plays its part too in addition I guess.

For the Ciaz, I almost certain most of the sales comes from cabs. I see a lot of them in Bangalore and the diesel is very VFM compared to the City.

SHVS played its part in decreasing the money in New Delhi massively and made it even more sweet for its buyers.

[SRM]

Originally Posted by Chetan_Rao

Not to forget the rather unimpressive 1.4L mill in their petrol avatars. Both cars are great practical choices for non-enthusiast drivers, let down badly by the bummer under the hood. I'd love to see the 1.0 Boosterjet become the standard petrol option in the 6-12 lac bracket for Suzuki.

I own a SX4 and that 1.6L petrol engine puts a smile on my face everytime I ride it! Wonder where that engine has disappeared from Maruti stable.

Ciaz would have been the perfect package with that 1.6L petrol engine plonked into it, a good combination looks, adequate power and features. But I guess mileage matters more in our part of the world and Maruti knows to play that well.

[i74js]

This is a very balanced state. There is no point in disassociating with a diesel mill unless turbo-charged petrol become the new "normal" for the market.

Present generation DOHC-CRDi mills are a pleasure to drive, which petrol cannot match in most of the cases. Fuel economy is certainly a major decision maker. I would say on the reliability front too, diesel mills are better compared to petrol units.

The policy makers will have their say, but petrol has its own disadvantages when it comes to emissions, and a 100% petrol market would be equally dangerous for the environment.

I would strongly advocate for a mixed use of both technologies and appropriate price support for petrol to ensure balance between technologies.

Maruti too would not leave diesel technology, just that its been long that they have been paying royalties to Fiat for the MJD, the present push towards petrol (if one has to believe that MSIL is actually doing it / reminding their dealers about it), will soon go off when the in-house diesel mill of Maruti is introduced in the market.

Like Japan where the mobile telephony is CDMA / WILL and no GSM, I doubt if there is any market which is petrol only or diesel only !

Let both technologies survive and grow !

[desdemona]

IF Maruti Suzuki can keep costs of localized manufacture of turbopetrols (say: like the 1.0 BoosterJet or the quite-localized Fiat t-jet on the Linea) low enough, one would expect India's market to fall as much in love en masse with turbopetrols as it did with turbodiesels, albeit without the price-distortions caused by fuel subsidies.

The skew for diesels will really, all else being equal, disappear when (if?) the new fuel quality and emissions norms get enforced (around 2020+?) Hopefully also special taxation, at city-level, for diesels' much-higher spm and NOx pollution? Until then, the soaring demand for taxi, uber/ola-type rides, will continue to underpin small, efficient diesel-engine sales imo.

If easy, convenient cng stations and affordable supply can be greatly and quicker enhanced countrywide, well then BOTH private as well as the more-commercial rationales for diesels in PVs would largely disappear, especially if turbopetrols by the dominant mass-market firm, MarutiS, catch on, and are cheap-enough?

[i74js]

Originally Posted by desdemona

IF Maruti Suzuki can keep costs of localized manufacture of turbopetrols (say: like the 1.0 BoosterJet or the quite-localized Fiat t-jet on the Linea) low enough, one would expect India's market to fall as much in love en masse with turbopetrols as it did with turbodiesels, albeit without the price-distortions caused by fuel subsidies.

The skew for diesels will really, all else being equal, disappear when (if?) the new fuel quality and emissions norms get enforced (around 2020+?) Hopefully also special taxation, at city-level, for diesels' much-higher spm and NOx pollution? Until then, the soaring demand for taxi, uber/ola-type rides, will continue to underpin small, efficient diesel-engine sales imo.

If easy, convenient cng stations and affordable supply can be greatly and quicker enhanced countrywide, well then BOTH private as well as the more-commercial rationales for diesels in PVs would largely disappear, especially if turbopetrols by the dominant mass-market firm, MarutiS, catch on, and are cheap-enough?

I agree with you on certain aspects, yet there is no example globally wherein both diesel and petrol technologies are not surviving together. There could be certain policies in support of specific technology (read petrol), yet discarding diesel altogether will not happen.

Even with the recent developments in fractional distillation technologies, refineries cannot produce any single type of fuel, a minor tweaking in %age of combination is possible though.

Even with CTL (coal to oil technology), which is now being commercially operated in countries with large coal reserves but lack of fossil fuels can produce diesel much cheaper compared to production of lighter fuels like petrol. The average cost of production in CTL is between US$ 40 - 50 per barrel of fuel produced, this is higher compared to the present market price of even sweet crude, yet the world has witnessed a US$ 100 market and if the prices bounce back to their original levels, policies can again have a bias towards fuels with higher calorific value.

Cheers !

[King_pin09]

Originally Posted by SchumiFan

For the Ciaz, I almost certain most of the sales comes from cabs. I see a lot of them in Bangalore and the diesel is very VFM compared to the City.

SHVS played its part in decreasing the money in New Delhi massively and made it even more sweet for its buyers.

Well I have not seen a single Ciaz cab yet, here in Mumbai. I presume they should be in very small number here (if at all they exist). May be the higher sales for diesel is due to influence by media reports that say "If at all one has to buy a Ciaz, it should be the one with a diesel mill."

On another note, I am not at all disappointed with the 1.4k mill on my Ciaz. To me it is frugal, efficient, capable of doing high speeds, good pick up and being a Suzuki it should be reliable (presumably, but only time will tell).

The only areas where it disappoints are refinement and torque. I mean to say that it is quite noisy for petrol and needs heavy accelerator inputs while moving off on an incline from stand still. Any shortage in accelerator inputs means you would stall the engine. My erstwhile Indica Vista petrol climbed the same inclines effortlessly with mere smooth release of clutch and without any accelerator inputs.