[volkman10]

Petrol is the dominant preference in almost all segments except the predicted UV segments ( CUV/SUV/MUV ) which are diesel preferred.

Interesting to see how this will look like post April 2020 when BS VI norms kick in.

Entry level car: No diesel variants available



Compact Hatchback segment :



- FIAT, Ford, Toyota diesel variants out sell its petrol counterpart, while for the rest of the manufactures it is the petrol variant that does the numbers.

Premium Hatchback



- its a petrol dominant segment

Compact Sedan



- Though it is a petrol segment the logistics market narrows the gap between the two.

Sedan Market



- A petrol dominant segment in terms of volumes, but Hyundai, VW, SKODA, FIAT see more of diesel sales.

Premium Sedan



- Clearly a win for the petrol variant with Hyundai and Skoda seeing a bit of diesel sales too.

Luxury sedan Segment



- Petrol edges out its diesel counterpart


CUV, MID SUV, Premium SUV, Lifestyle offroader, MUV

- Understandably all are dominated by diesel variant with an avg. of 80%+ sales as compared to petrol

CUV



MID-SUV



Premium SUV



Lifestyle Off-Roader segment



Multi Utility Vehicle

- Innova Crysta shows a near 100 % diesel dominant, Ertiga sales are equally divided between the two.



Link

[YashD]

Overall, I feel people are opting for Petrols in the segments where they know that the same is better than the diesel counter part. Also, it depends on the vehicle the consumer is opting for now. To further help their decisions, the BSVI norms & higher maintenance costs of the latter have further pushed the consumers towards petrol. For e.g Figo & Freestyle sells more in Diesel rather than in Petrol because the consumers are generally enthusiasts or people who like to drive and with a single test drive, you'll realize that the diesel is better. To an extent the same can be said about the i20 too but a lot of consumers in this respective segment are also first time buyers with limited running hence they end up getting Petrol models for the ease of maintenance and cheaper EMI, to a middle class, even that extra Rs. 1000 will matter and anyway most of the buyers in this segment have limited running who are buying the petrol variants.

Regarding the sedans, Petrol buyers are more because of the performance offered by the vehicles, most of the offerings are already expensive and spending almost more than a lakh for the diesel doesn't make sense. Now, one might counter that how does the Diesel Verna sells, that's because its overall the most value for money offering in the segment. Even though Ciaz is cheaper but in terms of outright performance & fit and finish, it does not even comes close to the former. Like I said ford, similarly consumers buying Rapid & Vento are generally Enthusiasts and hence they opt for diesel because performance but then again as Vento is offered with 1.2L TSi, you can see a lot more consumers opt for the same hence the petrol sales are also decent. Also, in the premium segment, the sale of Petrol models are more because sedans are mostly purchased by consumers staying in cities and have limited running. Even if they do have a higher running, you will see them driving around in their UVs. The sedans in India is more about status symbol rather than the outright use. The general consumer prefers diesels UVs anyday over them, one of the reason why the segment is shrinking so quickly. These days, I've mostly seen enthusiasts or people who are buying a vehicle just as a status symbol with a low running going in for premium sedans, the rest end up purchasing Cretas, Fortuners & Crystas.

The SUV segment throughout is anyway has always been a diesel oriented market. Also, none of the players offer absolutely staggering Petrol engines hence both the enthusiasts & mango people end up going for diesel. Also, generally I've noticed SUV users have a higher running than sedan drivers hence they want that superior mileage also moreover, we all are aware that most of the UVs in their petrol guise are gas guzzlers though the interesting bit here is some urban dwellers don't mind buying the Tucson or CRV in the petrol guise, I guess the good engines on offer ought be credited for the same? Also, does the Ertiga petrol sells more due to the better petrol engine or because its the only 7 Seater option in the MUV department which in reality quite a few people with bigger families would want in the city who has limited running!

[MrBeast]

By looking at the sales numbers, it is easy for anyone to guess that the market is shifting towards the petrol cars, however this is more so in the lower segment cars. Most of the entry level and compact hatchbacks lack a diesel engine. The premium hatchbacks, compact sedans, and C2 segment sedans have a decent petrol engine and only those enthusiasts who put performance as an important criteria go for the diesel counter parts. Those buying the CUV segment car or a SUV still prefer the diesel, maybe because of better power and torque to pull the heavier body weight along with decent fuel efficiency.

In past 12-18 months, I made some observations and will like to share it with everyone.
1. The sales person at the showrooms do push the buyers to go for the petrol models by manipulating data, telling unrealistic FE figures, sharing examples such as NGT ban in Delhi NCR, lower costs of maintenance, etc etc. Although they are not always wrong but they do influence the buyer's decisions. For example, when I was out in the market to buy a new car, the SA at Ford showroom did some math and came out with the conclusion that with my type of usage, I should opt for the petrol Aspire instead of the diesel one. To support it, he said TDCi will give me around 18-20kmpl (25kmpl claimed) but Ti-VCT will give me 14-16(19 kmpl claimed) and some other stuff as well. I, however went with the TDCi because of the ultimate power figures which it offered. Apart from that, he did use some other reasons such as higher cost of maintenance and 10 year life for a diesel car. In an another example, a relative recently bought a petrol Ertiga. He does Dadri-Gurgaon-Dadri on almost 4 days out of 7 in a week and thus his running is high. He was told that the petrol will give around 17-19kmpl on highway and the diesel will give 20-21kmpl. Apart from that the diesel maintenance was comparatively higher. He was also convinced about the fact that he will be able to use this car for extra 5 years (he used his K10 for almost 9 years before it was totaled in an accident) and also kept in mind that the petrol will be approximately 1.5 lakhs cheaper. However, now he is disappointed with his decision and regrets decision to buy the petrol version of the car. In real world, with a very sedate driving, he manages 12-14kmpl during his journey which is about 70 kms on highway and 20 kms in Gurgaon traffic. In my case, the difference between the diesel and petrol version of the Aspire was just 1 lac rupees and there was just a slight difference in terms of maintenance and servicing costs between the petrol and diesel version.
2. There are very few diesel automatics available in the market. Cars such as the Verna, Vento, Rapid, Ameo, Amaze, Creta and a few others do have a good auto gearbox along with a powerful diesel engine. The others do offer AMTs but they are meant for a relaxed driving style which may not be everyone's choice (personal opinion). It will be interesting to see the individual numbers for the Automatic and Manual versions of a same car which may decide if I am thinking in the right direction. For instance, the EcoSport does not have a diesel AT and same is the case with the Aspire, i20, Baleno, Jazz, Freestyle, etc.
3. Uncertainty of the future for diesel cars. To be honest, our law makers can come up with any idea which may imposes restrictions on a diesel car. So, some buyers prefer to remain in the safer zone and decide against buying the diesel cars, sometime even when their running justifies a diesel engine. Also there are some news which say petrol, hybrid and CNG car owners will be subjected to benefits like lower toll tax, etc.
4. The prices difference between diesel and petrol has reduced significantly since last 2-3 years and the running costs for a diesel car and petrol car are not separated by a larger margin.



These all are my personal opinions and thoughts. I may be wrong and will be happy to be corrected if I am thinking in the wrong direction.

[GTO]

Great thread, thanks for sharing Volkman10!

Interesting to see how, among hatchbacks, petrol dominates! It shows the price sensitivity of first-time car buyers, and also how the cheaper hatches either have no diesel option, or mediocre older / 3-cylinder ones.

As you move up the price band - starting with compact sedans - diesels claw back their lost ground. In cars that offer excellent diesels (e.g. Verna) or where the diesel is clearly the superior (e.g. Rapid), diesel is a majority. It shows how buyers are well informed.

In SUVs & MUVs, diesel will always dominate due to their torque, fuel economy & long highway tank range. Body-on-frame petrol UVs guzzle fuel like a burning oil field. E.g. on the Fortuner Petrol AT, I have seen 4 kmpl .

[SmartCat]

- Performance diesels are doing reasonably well. It is only commuter diesels that are seeing a drop in sales.

- Sub 4m sedans have a decent diesel mix, probably because of Ola/Uber sales.

[Asish_VK]

Great thread.
I think, the lower price gap between Petrol and Diesel is also contributing towards people's choice of petrol cars.

PS: CUV segment Diesel vs Petrol sales ratio is completely depending on Vitara Brezza . If Maruti had a petrol version of Brezza, I am sure the ratio would've been much closer.

[jagzrk]

The prime reason diesel makes more sense for economy is because of it delivering nearly similar mileage figures as claimed. Most probably this is because of the low end torque where one needs no accelerator input taking off from stop or speed-breakers or traffic. This is where diesel completely wins over petrol.

In a Petrol vehicle, you could get close to 80% of the claimed mileage figure only in very ideal conditions. The more number of times you'd slow down and speed up, the more fuel it will guzzle considering petrols almost always need significant accelerator input. This is almost always the case on Indian roads.

So for 1.5L engine based on a petrol and diesel, the petrol motor will deliver around 10-12 kmpl, while the diesel would almost always be around 17-18 kmpl no matter what the company claims. Many get dejected after buying a petrol car and not getting even 80% of the claimed mileage. Sure, some could claim to improve driving habits and drive in a "Very" specific way, but you just want to drive your car, not operate a space station.

[aniyo]

I will explain my case. I went in for Nexon diesel. My average running is about 35-36KM daily and with customer visit will be another 200 KM a month. This works out to 970 excluding weekend. Weekend will be another 100 or so. So total running will be 1100 and 1200 at max.
Conventional wisdom says with petrol and diesel price difference about Rs. 7-8 now it makes more sense to go for petrol. But I disagree.
Nexon petrol will give an FE of 10-10.5 in Bangalore city traffic while Nexon Diesel gives around 14.3-15 in the same traffic condition.
Petrol cost of running is about 7/km approx.
Diesel cost of running is about 4.6/KM
For 1100 KM this works out to 5060/month for Diesel and 7700/month for Petrol.
For petrol we will end up paying 2700-3000/ month extra that is about 33-36000/year.
If the on-road price difference between Petrol and diesel variant is 1.1-1.2L this will be recovered within 3 years and a better re-sale value down the line. Not to forget we get to drive a bigger engine with more power and torque. esp if one lives in the hills.

This is without long drives factored in. Assuming we drive 2000KM of highway drives in a year, that another Rs. 7000 difference for the year. So the total saving in fuel alone is 40-43000/ year.

As an example, I recently drove my Brio to Chennai from Bangalore. It's damn fun to drive a small taut hatch on the highway. Now I did the same average speed in Brio as I did in Nexon Diesel. The total FE for the trip in Brio was about 17 KMPL including 320KM highway drive and 30KM rush hour city drive.
Nexon diesel returned a FE of 17.5 KMPL for 320KM highway and 80KM rush hour city traffic.
Points to Note:
1. Nexon did not have the first service done, Brio had 48000 on the ODO
2. I did not have the fastag for Nexon drive, Brio was used with Fastag throught
3. Nexon ACC was at 24, Brio AC was at max.
4. Nexon diesel weighs 1320KG and Brio weighs 920KG
5. Nexon is 1500CC Turbo engine and Brio is 1200CC NA engine.
6. Nexon is less aerodynamic than Brio

Despite all the above, Nexon delivered a better FE. I still believe, if one has 1100KM drive and the difference between the variants is 1.1-1.2L, diesel still makes sense.

I bet many do not do the calculations as I did above. Most of them make a mental note and go by what others have to say.
I drove my wife nuts with excel sheet calculation to a point she told me to take what I want and she will not crib

[karan85]

Excellent thread. Thanks for sharing.

3 cars that surprised me here

#1 Creta : Though the diesel engine is more competent than the petrol engine, I expected a 50:50 split or maybe 60:40 in petrol's favor. The petrol engine though short on absolute punch is still silky smooth and very convenient for a city drive.

#2 & #3 Octavia & Superb: I expected the petrol numbers to be high but never expected them to be higher than the diesel. Superb was a bigger surprise.

Clearly folks prefer the petrol engine that Skoda offers to the diesel, hopefully we'll see one in Passat in 2020.

I have been tempted to buy a petrol Innova or a Fortuner as an addition to our garage but the numbers here just don't inspire confidence in getting one.
We need a comfortable car for 6 adults to be moved around the city and the running would not be high enough to buy a diesel, so these two fit right in the criteria. Plus I've heard the petrol engine is fairly refined as well.

[MrBeast]

Mod note: Post edited, please avoid quoting entire large posts for reply. Also please add pargraph breaks, helps with readability. Thanks.

Originally Posted by jagzrk

The prime reason diesel makes more sense for economy is because of it delivering nearly similar mileage figures as claimed.
=====
Many get dejected after buying a petrol car and not getting even 80% of the claimed mileage. .

I agree to that. Even I have noticed this alot. The diesel engines don't require us to rev it hard to get the car going. Also, the impact of AC is less on a diesel car than the petrol counterpart. However, a relative who is using a Brezza says FE figures drop by 2kmpl if he uses the AC. On the other hand, a cousin who is using Elite i20 diesel says the FE remains almost the same. In my case too, the FE of Aspire TDCi doesn't go down if I use the AC.

Originally Posted by aniyo

I will explain my case. I went in for Nexon diesel.
------
So the total saving in fuel alone is 40-43000/ year.

The same calculations made me go for the diesel Aspire. However I do not know what math my SA did and said that I will recover the extra one lakh rupees in 6-7 years, that too when I will use the car for around 1000kms a month. When I asked him to explain it, he simply made up things and changed the topic.

I was in the market for another car but the idea got dropped because of some reasons and during this time also, all the SAs were almost forcing us to go for the petrol instead of the diesel. I suspect they may have high incentives for selling the petrol engines

On a side note, I did read somewhere that for most of the car buyers, the actual running increase by almost 30-40% than what they calculated and hence, after getting the car home, end up driving it more than what they thought their average running will be.

[Nav-i-gator]

Honda CRV, WRV, Tata Nexon, VW Vento, MS Dzire, Ford Aspire, Figo, Freestyle Toyota Liva Fiat Punto, MS Ertiga and Hyundai Verna has the best spread between Petrols and Diesels; with Ertiga and Verna hovering at the perfect 50:50 split.

[avira_tk]

Originally Posted by MrBeast

On a side note, I did read somewhere that for most of the car buyers, the actual running increase by almost 30-40% than what they calculated and hence, after getting the car home, end up driving it more than what they thought their average running will be.

This is key, you can't base your calculations in the fact that you didn't drive your hatch very far. The low running is mostly because it'll be scary proposition in areas with bad roads. Ultimately, it boils down to the kind of travelling you do, if you don't like to travel by bus /train, expect your running to be higher when you have a better vehicle.

My car cost 60k more than the equivalent petrol version and according to my calculations, I recovered the premium within a year. Petrol cost 60%more back then, I'll still go for diesel today, given that turbo petrols have terrible economy if you don't baby the throttle.

It's good to see petrol sales going up, only about 20% of owners will have the driving to justify a diesel. We can thank the government for messing up this ratio earlier.

[yd_gli]

My wife was in the market for an SUV last year and we had a look at options all the way from the Hexa to the Duster. We finally ended up getting the Petrol Auto Duster. Why?
- Crazy pricing: We got it for 10.45 OTR. Nothing at the price point came even remotely close to the space and comfort offered by the Duster.

- Refinement: The engine is super refined and butter smooth. It beat the Creta petrol and Ecosport hands down. No contest. The drive experience on highways with the low NVH and suspension is from at least a segment higher if not two.

- Auto: My wife wanted an automatic and the AMT on the diesel just didn't do it for us.

- Resale: Traditionally diesels have had better resale. But with the upcoming laws and regulations, the resale for a BSIV diesel 5 years down the line is not a given. Plus the diesel was almost 2.5lakhs more and with the petrol diesel price difference it was not worth the extra amount especially given her limited commute distance.

We drove to Kerala earlier this year from Pune and we didn't regret the decision one bit. Super car and worth every rupee spent on it.

[jeepster_chd]

Originally Posted by GTO

Great thread, thanks for sharing Volkman10!

As you move up the price band - starting with compact sedans - diesels claw back their lost ground. In cars that offer excellent diesels (e.g. Verna) or where the diesel is clearly the superior (e.g. Rapid), diesel is a majority. It shows how buyers are well informed.

Etios is an exception here, may be Toyota for that matter. Etios has one of the best petrol engines offering excellent driveability, however, it fails to attract personal car buyer for reasons not part of this discussion. Whereas diesel Etios, no matter how unexciting it may be to drive, is taxi-segment favorite for the mileage it has on offer, excellent space, amazing comfort and of course, low maintenance.

Understanding car buyer sentiment is tricky.

[MrBeast]

Originally Posted by jeepster_chd

Etios is an exception here, may be Toyota for that matter. Etios has one of the best petrol engines offering excellent driveability, however, it fails to attract personal car buyer for reasons not part of this discussion. Whereas diesel Etios, no matter how unexciting it may be to drive, is taxi-segment favorite for the mileage it has on offer, excellent space, amazing comfort and of course, low maintenance.

Contrary to this, the Etios Liva does enjoy some fan following amongst the personal car buyers. The petrol Liva is a great city car with ample amount of space and good safety ratings. The dual tone variant along with those alloys does look attractive. The reliability too is not a concern.