The 2020 Auto Expo saw Maruti Suzuki India Ltd. put all of its cars on a strict petrol diet. Maruti Suzuki has no diesel variants in its portfolio now, the remaining two diesel cars, the Vitara Brezza and S-cross also been given new petrol only motors at the Auto Expo.
Read: 10 Reasons Why India Loves Maruti Suzuki Cars?
The reason behind this decision by MSIL is the introduction of the infamous BS6 emission norms in the country. Maruti Suzuki due to some reason thought of it as an opportunity to part ways with its diesel engines and revamp its market image. However, other companies in the Indian passenger car market didn’t choose to go down that road. Companies like Tata Motors and Hyundai came up with the new-age BS6 diesel engines, but Maruti just seems to have sat on a different table at this party.
While the other brands will now have a potential advantage with their diesel-powered cars, Maruti does not want to lose out on potential customers. The brand has come up with a fairly unique approach in response to this situation.
What is Maruti Suzuki’s Car Cost Calculator?
Maruti Suzuki recently came up with an Online Cost Calculator. The catchphrase used by Maruti for this online calculator is “Petrol or Diesel car, calculate kiya kya?”. This basically translates into making customers realise their purpose of buying a car based on a quick analysis of several factors affecting such a decision and are finally provided with a calculated suggestion on whether they should go with a diesel car or not.
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The calculator asks the potential costumers to fill out various details such as the city and state they hail from, chose a particular Maruti petrol car giving out its ex-showroom price compared with the cost of a similar diesel car (which can be edited to preference), put in your daily usage in Km per day, specify loan details and finally uses all this data to bring out a specific no of Kms and time it will take to cover the cost buying a diesel car over petrol. You can checkout Maruti’s Car Cost Calculator here.
Maruti Says, the trend is changing
Shashank Srivastava, Executive Director, Marketing and Sales at Maruti Suzuki, reportedly stated that “ There are many who aren’t aware of the narrowing difference in prices of petrol and diesel, and we found that the consumer believed there is a huge difference in fuel efficiency between petrol and diesel cars, which is no longer the case. It’s psychologically ingrained in the mind of buyers – especially in regions such as Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Punjab – that a diesel car works out to be less expensive than a petrol car anyway. With the calculator, we also wanted to highlight the difference between petrol and diesel cars in BS6 era is higher than what it was in the BS4 era.”
Maruti wants to shift the focus of the Indian consumers on the fact that the gap between petrol and diesel prices has decreased phenomenally and with the better fuel efficiency figures of the BS6 petrol engines, the significant cost-effective factor of the diesel cars have diminished substantially.
Also Read: 10 Things that make the Maruti WagonR the Perfect City Car!
With regions like Delhi-NCR banning 10 years or older diesel cars and also with the influx of eco-friendly electric vehicles around the corner, things don’t seem too good for the diesel cars.
Diesel cars and their cost in the long-run
The calculator states a price differential for a comparative diesel vehicle and calculates the no. of KMS one will have to on the odometer to cover the extra premium.
Mr Srivastava stated that “We noticed a few things in our research with consumers – one, they always somehow overestimate the number of kilometres they cover. Those who would drive 1,500km in a month tend to think they’ll do 2,500km in a month. We found that over 85 per cent of buyers overestimate the kilometres they run. When they actually start calculating basis their regular commutes, that’s when they realise their running is not as high as they’d originally thought.”
This somewhat goes to show that petrol cars might be a more cost-effective alternative in the long run.
Let’s not forget Performance
MSIL may or may not be able to change the perceptions of the Indian consumers through strategies like such but there is one more area that Maruti needs to cater to. With no diesel engine around, Maruti has no “pushing you in the seat”, high-torque, turbo performance to offer to the public.
What Maruti might need in the future is a turbo-petrol motor to fulfil the demands of the customers and to successfully execute their “All petrol cars” plan.
Cost calculator is a simple, ready-to-use online calculator, designed to help you compute your total cost amount. You can easly calculate cost amount using cost calculaor.