[RSR]

End of the road for Chevy's Tavera?

There were rumours floating around that Chevrolet would soon discontinue their Tavera MUV, along with the Sail twins and Enjoy MPV (link).

Now, the SC ruling that bans the sale of BS-III vehicles from April 1, 2017 across the country has further weakened the case for Tavera's continuation in the Indian market.

Chevrolet currently sell the Tavera only with a BS3 diesel engine. It's a 2499cc in-line four-cylinder Isuzu-derived DI-Turbo unit churning out 73.4 PS & 171 Nm of torque in its current BS3 guise:



Chevrolet did introduce a BS-IV compliant Tavera by plonking in a diesel engine derived from the ICML Rhino MUV, but they seem to have silently discontinued this version after the Tavera's emission irregularities episode.

The Tavera MUV is basically a badge-engineered Isuzu Panther. It was introduced as Chevrolet's response to the hot-selling Toyota Qualis. After the Qualis was discontinued, the Tavera became the favourite of cab operators looking for a rugged, reliable, abuse-friendly & easy-to-maintain 7/8/9/10-seater MUV. It was a role the Tavera fulfilled with ease, earning it many fans among regular cab users in the process (including yours truly)!



Rest in peace(?), Chevrolet Tavera. You will be greatly missed by both, fleet operators and cab users!

P.S.: Interestingly, the Chevrolet Tavera seems to be the only passenger vehicle sold by an overseas-headquartered company that has been affected by this ban on sale of BS3 vehicles from April 1, 2017!

[v12]

One option the dealers (who have stock of BS3 vehicles) have is to sell the vehicles to themselves before the 31st Mar, and then re-sell the vehicles as "Used". The "Used" price will still be more than the discounted price they have to offer on these vehicles.

For example :
Honda Navi
Original Price : 51,000
Discounted Price : 30,000
Loss (to dealer) : 20,000

If the dealer buys the Navi and transfer it on its name :
Original Price : 51,000
Selling it as a "unused" new bike with 0 kms for 45,000 - his loss would just be 6000.

[avinash_clt]

Unlike for passenger cars, emissions for two-wheelers are not as stringent. Europe went to EU4 for motorcycles only recently. US is still not there. However with the minuscule motorcycle population in these regions, their impact on total vehicular emissions is minimal, which is not the case in India. The monthly 2-wheeler sales figures of India is as large as the total 2-wheeler sales in whole of EU for roughly 1.5-2 years. The reduction in emissions due to BS4 being imposed on two-wheelers / commercial vehicles could relatively have more impact than by regulating the passenger vehicles alone (case till now).

There are however difference between EU4 and BS4 emission standards for two-wheelers. Attached document is worth reading if someone is interested.

• ''It seems that the proposed Bharat IV standards for classes 1, 2-1 and 2-2, the most popular two-wheelers in India, fall somewhere in between Euro 3 and Euro 4 for HC+NOX, but are ten years behind Euro 3 in terms of NOX limits.''
• A positive note is the adoption of global harmonized testing cycles than the simple low speed ones used for BS3 certification. However weightage to individual parts of testing cycle is different between EU and BS norms. BS norms also define more number of motorcycle classes.
• With BS4 (unlike before), crankcase vapours cannot be vented into the atmosphere (requiring some form of positive crank case ventilation system akin to cars).
• Standards and test for evaporative emissions have also been put into place (SHED tests - Sealed housing for evaporative determination).

EU4 vs BS4 norms for two-wheelers


Two-wheeler classes defined in BS4


Note: If I am not mistaken the Ducati 959 Panigale would have been the first EU4 compliant motorcycle that had been introduced in India.

Originally Posted by GrammarNazi

Any clue which are the BS 3 vehicle models that are being sold ?

If you mean the cars/passengers vehicles, all of them will be diesels without common rail direction injection tech, the ones which use mechanical fuel pump injection systems. So Bolero/Thar DI, Trax/Gurkha DI, non-CR4 Indica/Sumo etc, only a handful of models.

Originally Posted by vinit.merchant

I just received a whatsapp message as follows (I have not validated it)
Honda 2 wheelers offering discount of BS3 vehicles today & tomorrow, can be availed from any dealer
Scooter - 13,500
Motorcycle - 18,500
CBR 250 & 150 - 22,000

Is that true? Were their scooters/bikes really on BSIII platform?
CBR range raises serious doubts. I do not believe that CBR were BSIII. Were they?

Almost all of the two-wheelers sold in India were BSIII, as unlike passenger cars, there was never a phased implementaion of BSIV for two wheelers since 2010. This includes bikes of all sizes, carb or FI. It is indeed easier to upgrade the ones with FI to adhere to BS4, but it still not a simple re-calibration alone.

[Rehaan]

MOD NOTE:

Let's keep all the discussion on DISCOUNTS in this dedicated thread : LINK

[90BHP]

Interesting decision from the government. Anyway to know apart from the form 22 mentioned above whether the existing car is BS3 or BS4? I own a VW Vento TSi from December 2015. I can't seem to find anything in the brochures or my documents

[dailydriver]

Originally Posted by 90BHP

Anyway to know apart from the form 22 mentioned above whether the existing car is BS3 or BS4?

Please correct me if i am wrong, but i think the presence of a Catalytic Converter and OBD2 port are perhaps two very distinguishable (at least for Bhpians) features of BS4 vehicles.

[4x4addict]

Frankly, I don't have much sympathy for these Manufacturers. Most of them had BSIV technology cause they were selling in urban markets as well. It is the typical mentality of Indian automobile manufacturers to do bottom fishing .

I am almost certain that we will go through the same hoopla when the new safety norms kick in.

[sgiitk]

Originally Posted by aviraj

Does this mean BS-III or older vehicles for which registration has expired cannot be re-registered going forward? What happens to such vehicles?

afaik the issue may be moving from A to B, esp if B has tougher standards. Basically, old vehicles can be re-registered with the old specs. Remember we still have a lot of BS-II and III cars around.

[romeomidhun]

Source: https://gaadiwaadi.com/bs-iii-mahind...scount-380393/

Thar BS-III is having a 1L discount. I assume this will be effective only till today midnight.

[RaghuVis]

Hope something like Demo happens in 2020 when we move from BS(IV) to BS(VI) and government makes it clear that all vehicles below BS(IV) should be scrapped and cannot be re-registered!

If BS(IV) reduced pollution by 80% when compared to BS(III), why is NGT not taking this with as much vigor as Diesel ban (10yr old) or Diesel greater than 2.0L? Given the volumes, doesn't this pose a bigger threat to our environment than Cars?

[PetroTurbo]

Originally Posted by v12

One option the dealers (who have stock of BS3 vehicles) have is to sell the vehicles to themselves before the 31st Mar, and then re-sell the vehicles as "Used". The "Used" price will still be more than the discounted price they have to offer on these vehicles.

Bang on Mate... One of my friend has bought 2 Honda CBR 250 ABS and got a discount of 55000 on each bike . So he has invested around 3.6 Laks and he is planning to sell them after April 5th and make a profit of around 30-50 K, let's hope for the best

It's a big risk, but he took it based on the Whatsapp joke on Selling and buying things in OLX for a free Packers and Movers

[drmohitg]

We need to change the title of the thread from predicament to "having a field day". Even with massive discounts, most manufacturers will make a basic profit on each vehicle and also earn through after sales. Almost all showrooms in Delhi NCR atleast have run out of stock. I don't know if the court's decision was right or wrong but nothing changed for the environment!

[centaur]

Most of the vehciles on discounts were sold out as told to me by some and also on the radio this morning. Given this, I really doubt how many really care for the environment. The 10-12k that they might save today, is something they might have to pay with interest (or even more) to a doctor for breathing problems and the irony is, he will be causing many more people to do the same just because he wanted to save some money. Ideally people should not have taken them even for free and taught the manufacturers a lesson. Anyway, that's an ideal scenario

A question which has been around in my mind for sometime. What stops the manufacturer from taking this inventory and just replacing the engines with BS IV ones? Yes there is a logistics cost and labour involved but then they would be selling these BS IV vehicles at a higher cost than BS III anyway. Adding to it, they can show it as some sort of CSR responsibility and come out in front of the masses as someone who is bothered a little more than just profits.

[MDED]

Originally Posted by centaur

.

.

A question which has been around in my mind for sometime. What stops the manufacturer from taking this inventory and just replacing the engines with BS IV ones? Yes there is a logistics cost and labour involved but then they would be selling these BS IV vehicles at a higher cost than BS III anyway. Adding to it, they can show it as some sort of CSR responsibility and come out in front of the masses as someone who is bothered a little more than just profits.

Do you really think that, we have the courage to look beyond short term gains and care for the larger picture. If we were bothered, then we would have stopped urinating on roads, stopped throwing trash on road, stopped bribing for getting the work done. There are thousands of things which we just talk and don't do and half of the population will not even know what is meant by emission, forget BS norms! Thus, we see bang for the buck, we budge.

If the auto manufacturers were serious about converting to BS IV, then they would have done it long back without breaking and banging their head at the eleventh hour. Period.

[mjkaushal]

I really don't know about the people buying the so called BS3 vehicles. It was raining ads on whatsapp and papers about the massive discounts. I too was curious about some of the bikes and inquired about them today morning, but to no avail. There were no stocks let alone in Bangalore but almost whole of Karnataka State. All the numbers given in the newspapers were either switched off or busy.

Nobody seemed to have bought any vehicles, but the new tell us a different story about a few lakh vehicles left in the inventory.

Look like the dealers themselves have a nexus between them.