KOLKATA: The Indian subsidiary of French automaker Renault will sell only petrol cars from next year. It will also launch products engineered specifically for India and not cars from its global portfolio.
Announcing the decision to phase out diesel powertrains and concentrate solely on petrol cars once Bharat Stage VI norms are introduced in April 2020, Renault India Operations country CEO and managing director Venkatram Mamillapalle said: “The technology that other car markers are adopting initially will only just meet the emission norms. When the next phase of emission norms are introduced, these vehicles will have to be upgraded and that could cost an additional Rs 2 lakh per car. It won’t make economic sense for a customer to pay Rs 3 lakh more than a petrol car to buy a vehicle powered by diesel,” he explained.
Maruti Suzuki has already announced the decision to exit diesel. Renault currently has one petrol powertrain and plans to add two more, including turbo charged ones, in the next three years.
Mamillapalle was in the city to launch of Triber, a modular seven-seater compact car developed for India by the Renault engineering team in Chennai and design team in Paris, The next three cars the company plans to introduce till 2022 will be similarly co-developed. “They will meet the expectations of Indian customers, both on styling and affordability,” he said.
Triber also marks a shift from Renault and its associate firm Nissan sharing a common platform to create diverse products to developing products on separate platforms. Kwid, the small car with the stance of an SUV that was introduced by Renault in 2015, shares the platform with Go and Go+, the low-cost cars from Nissan’s sister brand Datsun. The platform developed for Triber has also been used for its next vehicle, a compact SUV code-named HBC that will be launched next year.
Renault India will review its existing product portfolio next year to decide on whether to continue with the MUV Lodgy (derived from sister company Dacia) and SUV Captur that does well in Europe but hasn’t impressed buyers here. It will, however, retain the SUV Duster (also a Dacia vehicle) that continues to do well in India. “The next generation Duster will happen in future but not of Captur,” the executive said.
Renault India will focus majorly on rural markets over the next three years while increasing the number of touch points from 350 at present to 720. While half the present numbers are located in smaller towns, the ratio will increase to nearly 70% rural dealerships and service points by 2022. “We foresee a significant shift from two-wheelers to cars in the rural markets,” added Mamillapalle.