Despite outbreak, sales of BS-VI vehicles cross over 1 million

By Lijee Philip
MUMBAI: Auto majors have placed more than a million BS-VI passenger vehicles on Indian roads despite the Covid-19 pandemic playing spoilsport. While some players are yet to launch their BS-VI portfolio due to the lockdown, others started a year in advance, experts said.

Though BS-VI emission norms came into effect April 1 onwards, sales of such vehicles crossed the million mark in a year's time, following some good product planning, global collaborations and new entrants introducing only BS-VI products in the market. Maruti Suzuki leads the field having sold a total of over 7.5 lakh BS-VI units till date.

“The early introduction of the BS-VI compliant engine in its popular models (in April 2019) represents commitment to the government's vision for a clean and green environment,” said a Maruti spokesperson. Korean carmaker Hyundai has sold 1.23 lakh units of BS-VI cars till date. New entrants Kia sold 84,971 units after launching its portfolio of vehicles in August 2019, while MG Motors sold 4,000 BS-VI vehicles. Toyota’s cumulative numbers stood at 39,000 BS-VI vehicles. Naveen Soni, senior VP, sales and service, Toyota Motor said the larger issue was the availability of BS-VI fuel, which prompted them to launch such vehicles in a phased manner.

Toyota completed its BS6 transition for all models in January this year. Some of the predominantly diesel players delayed launching their models due to product planning issues. Mahindra and Tata Motors together have sold 7000 BS6 units till March-end, having to play a catch up game.

Interestingly, a higher price for BS6 cars and the steeper cost of ownership was supposed to be a deterrent for consumers under the current market conditions, experts said. Industry estimates show a price rise of 1-3% for BS-VI petrol vehicles and 5-10% for the diesel vehicles.

“As we come out of the pandemic, future consumers will be more environment focused and adoption to newer technologies like BS6 should not be a challenge. Last year has shown both original equipment makers (OEM) and customers have started to shift naturally to BS6,” said Som Kapoor, partner at E&Y.