Petrol cars finding more takers

Petrol cars are being bought much more than before, this time around. Even though the number of diesel cars being sold is much more than petrol cars the sales of petrol cars are increasing. For some diesel cars like Maruti Swift and Maruti Swift Dzire there was a waiting period of about six months and the there were talks of ramping up the production process. But now there is a little more tilt towards petrol cars. This year there were about 5 per cent more Maruti Swift petrol cars sold. This is a pointer in the direction that petrol cars are beginning to gain ground that they had lost to diesel cars in the past and that the customers are starting to bend slightly more towards petrol beauties rather than diesel noise boxes.

The reason being stated for this sudden love towards petrol car is that the narrowing price gap between petrol and diesel. The de regularisation of fuel is likely to narrow this gap further. According to Shashank Srivastava, Maruti’s chief general manager (marketing), “Sale of petrol variant is surging, though diesel still sell more in sheer numbers.” Earlier the difference in the prices of petrol and diesel was about Rs 15 but today the difference is about Rs 11.56.

Another reason why petrol cars are getting more buyers is because the petrol engines have been constantly improving. These days petrol cars have a number of new technologies including a turbo charger to enable the engine to generate more power by improving air-fuel mix. This in turn has also done wonders to the fuel efficiency levels.

The largest car maker in the country is reportedly making more petrol cars for its hatch Maruti Ritz and even the K-series Maruti Swift is in demand.

With the price gap narrowing the disadvantages of diesel cars that include their high cost of buying and a much higher cost of running and maintenance are also beginning to affect buyers. Industry observers feel that the customers might in future start going for petrol cars as they are cheaper to maintain and run.

It has been observed that cars like Maruti Swift, Skoda Fabia, Ford Fiesta, Fiat Palio, Mahindra Logan and Maruti Swift Dzire see customers asking for their diesel variants. On the other hand there are cars like the Ford Figo, Volkswagen Polo, Hyundai i20 and Maruti Ritz that sometimes see higher or about equal demand for petrol and diesel options.