Maruti Suzuki has taken an early lead when it comes to sales of BS6 cars. In conversation with Autocar India, CV Raman, senior executive director, Maruti Suzuki, disclosed that the share of BS6 cars in the carmaker’s monthly sales has crossed “over 70 percent”. In October 2019, the carmaker sold a total of 1,39,121 passenger vehicles. Maruti was the first of India’s mass-market manufacturers to launch a BS6-compliant model – the BS6 Baleno petrol that was launched on April 22, 2019, nearly a year before the emission norms take effect. In the months since, Maruti has launched seven more BS6-compliant petrol models, namely the Alto, Swift, Wagon R (1.2), Dzire, Ertiga, XL6 and S-Presso.

The models yet to be upgraded to BS6 spec include the Alto K10, Wagon R (1.0), Ignis, Celerio and Eeco. As is widely known, Maruti will withdraw its diesel engines before April 2020, with the 1.3-litre diesels on the Vitara Brezza and S-Cross set to make way for BS6-compliant 1.5-litre petrol units. CV Raman hinted that Maruti is working for sales to come entirely from BS6 models “in the next three months”.

At the beginning of October, Maruti Suzuki announced that it had already sold over two lakh BS6-compliant vehicles in six months – that’s a little more than 30 percent of Maruti’s cumulative sales in the April-September 2019 period.

Delving on the challenge of transitioning the entire range to BS6 spec, CV Raman said, “As you know, enhanced safety requirement had already kicked in from 2017 and we got a very short window of three years for upgrading all vehicles to BS6. For us, it was a question of how do we ensure that these two regulations are put in as part of our product development cycle or product roadmap and see that we can meet those regulations. When we worked backwards, we realised we had 50 engine-gearbox combos to upgrade, accounting for petrols, diesels, CNG, manual and autos. And since the date of sale is April 1, 2020, we needed to ensure our inventory of BS4 cars is also depleted.” He also added that “It was very important for us that the entire ecosystem of Maruti should be able to make this change and not have obsolescence or have a fire sale at the end of the day.”

At the dealer level, both Arena and Nexa outlets are currently offering significant discounts and benefits on nearly all Maruti cars and SUVs, in a bid to sell off old inventory and make space for the new BS6 models. The Baleno RS, which is the only model in the Maruti stable to be powered by the brand’s 102hp, 1.0-litre Boosterjet turbo-petrol engine, has been available with rather significant benefits. Maruti’s diesel range, in particular, is also now available with large benefits, including Maruti’s free five-year/1,00,000km extended warranty.

However, Maruti is bullish on the upcoming Vitara Brezza petrol and expects the model to replace diesel volumes 1:1.