The deregulation in diesel prices has finally opened up Mahindra’s eyes. After facing a slumped demand across all its product categories, it has now embarked on a journey with Ssangyong to smelt brand-new petrol engines. Till date, Mahindra has only diesel engines powering its whole lineup.
Although Indian market trends favour diesel over petrol by a large margin in the current timescape, Mahindra feels they need to have some cushioning effect ready for any quick bucking of trend. As mentioned earlier, they have seen a slight fall in their vehicle demand due to rise in diesel prices after the decontrol policy was implemented by our government.
Together with Ssangyong, it is working on developing three/four-pot engines of varying capacities. Pawan Goenka has had a tete-a-tete with AutoCar India, and has confirmed these series of developments. He even remarked that these upcoming engines would be used to power their new vehicles. These new vehicles would be smaller than what they offer today. In doing so, he has hinted at the upcoming Mahindra S101 Compact SUV, and to a little extent, the Quanto facelift.
The manufacturer also claimed that the series of new engines will be developed from scratch. Massive technical inputs are expected to have come from Ssangyong (Rather than Mahindra.. 😉 ) and hence these engines could be as good as any one out of the current crop in the market.
However, there is a caveat. The blue-printing, designing and testing will take considerable time. Mahindra has also stated that they have exhausted their launch window and don’t have any new products lined up till 2016-17. All they have is a host of facelifts, possessing few niptuck jobs here and there.
Can they weather the storm till 2016 on the back of refurbishes?? Our fingers are crossed. What about yours??
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