Tata Zest is the country’s first diesel car to get an Automated Manual Transmission (AMT) and the cheapest automatic diesel sedan. India’s love for AMT suddenly sprang up ever since Maruti introduced it on their Celerio hatchback, but it is available only with the petrol engine.
The 1.3L Multijet diesel engine from Fiat has got the AMT gearbox on the Zest whereas Tata’s own 1.2L Revotron petrol motor makes do with the regular 5-speed manual transmission only.
We sat down with Mr Ranjit Yadav, President Passenger Cars Tata Motors at an event recently and posted a few questions, one of which was on the possibility of AMT gearbox on the 1.2L petrol engine, to which he said that the newly developed 1.2L Revotron will also get the AMT in the future when they will slowly trickle down this technology to other cars in their line-up.
However he remained silent on how soon that day would come. Amidst whatever hints we got, we do not expect it to happen in a jiffy and an ideal expected time frame is sometime next year.
So why did Tata not bring the AMT on the petrol engine? As per Mr Yadav, the Revotron with 90PS of power and 140Nm of torque is a fun to drive car. Diluting it with an AMT would not do it justice. They want that their customers enjoy the power of the engine. Also the three driving modes, Eco, City and Sport, which are easily accessible with just a touch of a button, already give it enough technological edge against its rivals.
Whatever may be the reason, Tata’s new 1.2L Revotron motor will get the AMT, if not soon, sometime later.
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