Tata Motors has shelved plans of the diesel variant for the Nano small car. This comes as a shocker as the vehicle was highly anticipated by many people but the company claims the shifting of customer preference to petrol cars as one of the reasons for this decision.
Tata Motors also agreed that the diesel Nano is not commercially viable for the Indian market at this point of time due to the expensive technology associated with it. This variant will breach the Rs 3 lakh mark, making it compete with cars like the Hyundai Eon and the Chevrolet Spark. Additionally, decrease in petrol price and rise in diesel cost has made consumers shift focus to petrol vehicles, reducing the overall sales of diesel vehicles.
Tata Motors was working on an expensive direct injection common rail technology sourced from its German component supplier Bosch, with plans to develop the country's most fuel-efficient car. The Nano diesel was also expected to fill the gap and offer a great value product to potential customers in terms of fuel efficiency and city driving, which the 624cc petrol variant could not achieve so far.
"At any given time, we work on a number of projects and we have the diesel technology readily available. Nano remains an important brand and we constantly continue to evaluate the best market-suited variants for it but given the changing dynamics of fuel pricing in the country, we are not immediately focused on announcing a go-to-market date for this," said Tata Motors' spokesperson.
Source: ET
