[pqr]

2022 (Jan-Sep): Product wise diesel-mix-trend

• Diesel is the preferred choice for SUVs or MUVs having a body-on-ladder-frame chassis due to fuel efficiency and weight considerations, which are mainstays for Toyota and Mahindra.
• Diesel become preferred choice when petrol drivetrain’s value proposition is weak – Hyundai-KIA, Toyota & Jeep Compass.
• The availability of a proper automatic transmission (torque convertor gearbox) has a significant impact on buying decisions for self-driven passenger vehicles; unfavourable for the Hyundai Venue, Honda City, Mahindra XUV 300, Tata Nexon, and MG Hector.
• Hyundai, KIA, Mahindra, and Toyota have a strong dependence on diesel powertrains for UV portfolio.
• The small diesel engine volumes of Tata and Honda are too low to sustain in the future (BS6-RDE phase).
• Hatchback and sedan diesel drivetrain volume is too low to sustain in the future (BS6-RDE phase).

SUV: Ladder frame chassis



SUV/Crossover: Monocoque chassis



MUV



Hatchback



Sedan

[fhdowntheline]

Hyundai Alcazar's numbers look pretty interesting. For what is perceived as a "just adequate" performance of the 1.5 CRDI with 115BHP , it appears that people are comfortable with it over the petrol variant, which ideally should be the choice for that car.
This is also echoed somewhat in the Carens numbers with 53 % opting for diesel. Apparently customers equate people-movers with diesel efficiency.

On the other hand, Hector's 36 % for its arguably best powerplant option can only be explained by the lack of an AT transmission.
I also thought the Compass shows an interesting trend of 43 % owning the petrol version, which is way more than popular perception.

[achyutaghosh]

Originally Posted by pqr

2022 (Jan-Sep): Product wise diesel-mix-trend[list][*]Diesel become preferred choice when petrol drivetrain’s value proposition is weak – Hyundai-KIA, Toyota & Jeep Compass.

Very interesting chart, and thank you for your analytical posts, pqr. Following comments-

1. The monocoque petrol XUV700 is as potent as the diesel, yet 2 out of 3 XUVs are diesels. Petrol SUV value proposition will always remain weak because of efficiency concerns, so till the day diesel options are available, and there is no 10 year rulings applicable, most people will continue to buy the diesel options.

2. I am really surprised that petrol accounts for 2 out of every 3 MG Hectors sold. The petrol Hector is inadequate, by all accounts, and the resale market is flooded with them. Is the lack of automatic the only reason for lack of diesel sales though, given the 2 liter engine is very good?

3. The Compass's diesel skew may be also because of availability of 4x4 in those variants.

4. The Scorpio didnt get a petrol option till the launch of the Scorpio-N. So that 96% diesel number may reduce to a Thar like 75% for Scorpio over time i guess.

5. The diesel skew in Alcazar is surprising. One may say heavier 7 seater, refined engine etc, but then the 7 seater Carens with the same engine doesnt have that skew, as does the Seltos and Creta.

6. 5% petrols for Innova vs 3% of Fortuner. Didnt realize the split is so close. I see a lot of petrol Innovas atleast in NCR.

7. Would be good to have some break-ups for NCR if possible. These numbers will look a bit different.

Originally Posted by pqr

[*]The small diesel engine volumes of Tata and Honda are too low to sustain in the future (BS6-RDE phase).

I agree. Do not see these small diesels continuing beyond next year.

[Maky]

Originally Posted by pqr

2022 (Jan-Sep): Product wise diesel-mix-trend

Thanks for sharing this list pqr. Perhaps next one you can also label or add a note besides vehicles which are offered as Diesel only, such as the Harrier.

[GTO]

Thanks for sharing, pqr . These are the kind of stats that industry followers like us thrive on!

- Diesel percentages of Nexon, i20, Altroz, WR-V & Venue show how diesel small cars are more or less finished. Goodbye, budget diesels. How Maruti predicted this trend is just remarkable.

- Scorpio diesel mix of 96% is for the old car. The new Scorpio-N's deliveries have only just started. I would expect it to be 25-35%. It's a very good turbo-petrol that will appeal to urban dwellers.

- Fortuner, no surprises there, Delhi-NCR 10-year ban notwithstanding. It still remains primarily a diesel car with just 3% of sales from the petrol. Of course, one reason will be that the old NA petrol itself is quite an average motor (unlike say, the modern turbo-petrols of other SUVs & crossovers).

- What I find most interesting is how sales of the crossover champions = Creta & Seltos - are about half & half for petrol : diesel. Urban users, sure. But also, unlike big trucks (Fortuner), the petrol versions of these smaller SUVs still deliver acceptable FE. Plus, there is no large price difference between the turbo-petrol DCT & Diesel ATs.

[Torquedo]

Originally Posted by GTO

How Maruti predicted this trend is just remarkable.

Remarkable, Maruti , this adjective and proper noun don't gel well in a single sentence, reasons -

1) With the BS 6 being introduced, the diesels engines ain't cheap any longer, others still offer them, that's the good part about them.

2) With the blanket 10 years rule, NCR and beyond NCR, people have started thinking 100 times before buying a diesel, 15 years with a limited use case still would have made sense, 10 years does not make the cut, I would have picked up the Harrier well over the 7OO had this rule not been in place. Your 530d is a prime example. NCR sales are more than combined sales of other 3 metros.

3) Barely any gap between the diesel and gasoline prices, compare it to 2011 prices, the diesel prices were half of gasoline.

4) Maruti does not have the engineering skills to come up with a diesel engine, remember the 2 cylinder on the Celerio.

MSIL and the Government work hand in glove, close to 45 odd percentage of the ex showroom price of a car goes as taxes, there is insider information that gets shared, with Maruti selling in large volumes, government makes a killing as well, so they are well appraised of what's in store. Add RTO charges that are pocketed by the government.

There is nothing remarkable about Maruti, selling 2 engines (that too might be the same with just a different bore or stroke) across the product range, calling them pedestrian would be an understatement.

P.S. Like Elon is working on an Edit button, we should have something similar on TBHP to take back the Thanks, I actually have pressed it mistakenly at times, post logging in and at times pressing it instead of the quote button. The user may be notified, when this happens.

[theAutomaniac]

Originally Posted by pqr

[b]2022 (Jan-Sep): Product wise diesel-mix-trend

With the SUVs like 7OO, Compass, Hector etc having high petrol ratios, it is clear that given that when the choice of a good petrol motor is provided, many customers definitely shift from diesels!
The only SUVs being completely or majorly dominated by diesels are either diesel-only or have average petrol engines (i.e. Innova and Fortuner), and that is definitely an interesting statistic!

Originally Posted by GTO

How Maruti predicted this trend is just remarkable.

Completely agreed! Maruti and the Germans read the market well ahead of everyone and I bet other Japanese brands had a similar policy so that when the customer shifts away from diesels, they can steal the customers with strong hybrids and CNGs etc!
Exciting to see how fast diesels (and diesel-reliant manufacturers) will fall once strong hybrids start gaining popularity! Sure some vehicles like the Fortuner will still be diesels, but diesels are set to become just a niche!

Originally Posted by Torquedo

Remarkable, Maruti , this adjective and proper noun don't gel well in a single sentence

With the "remarkable" adjective, GTO simply wanted to highlight their R&D department's capabilities of predicting the future and taking the right (for them) call and had nothing to do with Maruti's engineering skills etc! That's just unnecessary exaggeration.

1) With the BS 6 being introduced, the diesels engines ain't cheap any longer, others still offer them, that's the good part about them.

Others are still selling them but are still following Maruti's footsteps gradually (e.g. recent news about 1.5CRDI, Innova Hycross, IDTEC etc) and that sir, is exactly why we have such petrol v/s diesel comparisons!

4) Maruti does not have the engineering skills to come up with a diesel engine, remember the 2 cylinder on the Celerio.

Well, there were no similar capacity diesels from other manufacturers as the 0.8L 2 Cylinder and so, I think it is unfair to say they don't have engineering skills while talking about an engine which never had any rivals!

What had rivals though, was the 1.5L E15A DDIS engine which as per GTO, Sirish, and many other experts, has a great linear powerband, completely demolishes the IDTEC (and VW's 1.5 TDI in refinement) and is on par with Hyundai's 1.6 CRDI in terms of refinement. And considering the E15A was Maruti's first non-2 cylinder diesel globally, I guess matching upto the legendary Hyundai 1.6 CRDI isn't something a "non-remarkable" manufacturer would do!

MSIL and the Government work hand in glove.....government.

So you mean Maruti and Govt working "hand in glove" is the reason why the govt is making Maruti's life miserable by its EV centric policies and ignoring Maruti's core strengths(i.e. mild-hybrids/strong-hybrids/CNGs) to the core??

There is nothing remarkable about Maruti, selling 2 engines (that too might be the same with just a different bore or stroke) across the product range, calling them pedestrian would be an understatement.

Well as I said sometime before, every manufacturer knows what's best for their business case. The manufacturers are working day&night preparing data sheets to develop strategies unlike us, who are just commenting from our POV. If what we consider "non-remarkable" works for them and keeps their customers happy, I do not see a reason for them to be "remarkable"!

Plus since I'm a proud owner of the Bajaj V15, I know how the struggle to find parts feels when your vehicle doesn't share parts or engine with its other similar capacity family members! (Pulsar 150 and Discover 150 in my bike's case!)

[ashis89]

Diesels were popular when the fuel was cheaper and delivered better FE. While the slightly better FE of a diesel engine remains (BS6 spoils that too), the fuel price being at par with petrol has changed the reference/preference of the buyer. And the turbo petrols are smooth fun too.

Buyers have been avoiding diesels and moving to petrol due to DPF scare, NGT scare and of course, the perception of diesel having higher maintenance costs.

With increasing purchasing power, people don't fret over the single digit FE of a petrol. People who drive fewer thousand in a year, have realised they won't save much going with the heavy dirty fuel. To compare, for someone driving 5-10k in a year a petrol will have less than an extra EMI cost as additional fuel expense compared to a diesel.

[pqr]

Originally Posted by achyutaghosh

4. The Scorpio didnt get a petrol option till the launch of the Scorpio-N. So that 96% diesel number may reduce to a Thar like 75% for Scorpio over time i guess.

Originally Posted by GTO

- Scorpio diesel mix of 96% is for the old car. The new Scorpio-N's deliveries have only just started. I would expect it to be 25-35%. It's a very good turbo-petrol that will appeal to urban dwellers.

Breakdown of the Mahindra Scorpio 2022 fuel mix: Mahindra has been reporting Scorpio and Scorpio-N data together.

[sgmuser]

It is a bit of an irony that when we go up the ladder (more the car cost) we see more and more diesels (concern on fuel cost). Lower half is Gasified already. But I really wonder whether we will be converting to Petrol anytime soon in the top end of the spectrum unless there is a legislation on emission in the metros etc. like that of Delhi. Mostly, it is not just fuel cost but as well as the 2nd hand market has a better value for diesels usually. I personally opted for the X1 diesel for its mouth watering 16+ kmpl and that Petrol like smooth/quiet engine and that surge/torque.

[Contrapunto]

I think the biggest contributor has been that the "gap" between petrol and diesel has diminished to a very small %age. People now buy the car they like, not based on calculation of running costs for diesel vs. petrol.

I think Maruti's transition to petrol has not been "by design". They failed in designing their own diesel engine that could be upgraded to BS6 stage 2. There are very few "small, cheap diesel" options available in the international market that they could license and yet maintain their margin projections. All this led to a "petrol only" Maruti. But in every crisis there is a silver lining. I hope their collaboration with Toyota and the "transition cars" in hybrid form should stand them in good stead.

It would be interesting to see how Maruti evolves along with the car industry, given the headstart that Tata Motors has in EVs, Mahindra well set to launch their own, and MG+ BYD flexing their muscles.

[kosjam]

Originally Posted by fhdowntheline

Hyundai Alcazar's numbers look pretty interesting. For what is perceived as a "just adequate" performance of the 1.5 CRDI with 115BHP...

This is an observation which is only applicable to us members of the forum. The vast majority of buyers do not have such notions, as they frequently value creature comforts much higher than outright engine power and torque figures.

On top of that, the typically Indian need for higher mileage ensures that India specific engines are tuned to deliver more efficiency at the cost of outright performance.

This I experienced first hand when I spoke to a Tata showroom sales person when I test drove the Tata Punch, and commented on the relatively low pickup and power. He informed me that I was in a minority who actually bothered to even point it out, most others were focused on the safety and the creature comforts.
Secondhand, I even saw a friend of mine pick up his specific model Creta, only to satisfy the demands of his wife to have a sunroof (More than a year ago)

[achyutaghosh]

Originally Posted by fhdowntheline

Hyundai Alcazar's numbers look pretty interesting. For what is perceived as a "just adequate" performance of the 1.5 CRDI with 115BHP , it appears that people are comfortable with it over the petrol variant, which ideally should be the choice for that car.

Price difference between Alcazar petrol and diesel is pretty low (around INR 30-45k) because of the engine displacement difference i guess. In most other cars, this difference is upwards of INR 1 lakh. That may be a reason for the diesel skew.

[Benoit]

Wonderful details. It would be great if there was a split between automatic and manual.

I feel the cSUV segment will see more sales in diesel if they offered a TC unit. Tata and Mahindra have powerful diesel engines that come close to creta in spec. They can rake in good numbers with a proper auto box, Hyundai has the data on this with sonet and yet they wouldn't get Venue the auto box on sonet. I guess it's an agreement to have their unique set of features. Same way like Creta has a panoramic sunroof and seltos doesn't.

[sunikkat]

For me surprising is Alcazar and Compass.

Alcazar because the same engine is available in Creta too and still people buying Alcazar. Where as petrol is from a segment above (Tucson) but do not find many takers. Might be because 1.4 TGDI perform better than 2 NA.

Compass diesel is definitely superior to petrol and still managing only 57%.

Wouldn't be surprised to see diesel engines going away from anything < 15 lakhs.