M&M to launch BS VI compliant vehicles soon

Homegrown auto major Mahindra and Manhindra Monday said it is ready to launch its BS VIcompliant vehicles next year and will be rolling out the petrol range in 2019 itself."We will be ready with our first gasoline BS VI ready vehicles by end of second quarter of this year," M&M Managing Director Pawan Goenka told reporters here."We would probably be able to launch gasoline vehicles as soon as we are ready because it does not require a BS VI fuel, but we will not be able to launch the diesel vehicle till the fuel becomes available throughout India. I am assuming it to be somewhere in late December and early January," Goenka said.The Bharat Stage VI (or BS-VI) emission norms would come into force from April 1, 2020 across the country. Currently, the vehicles sold in the country conform to BS-IV emission standards.The company has invested Rs 1,000 crore for transition to BS VI norms.He said ramping up and down the entire volume of the automotive business in next 2-3 months is a humongous challenge for suppliers and also for the plants.Last 3.5 years have perhaps been the most challenging years for any product development and sourcing organization in auto industry in India, he said, adding that nearly 700 people worked over the last 3.5 years to make BS VI happen."We are ready and we see no technical risk in taking BS VI vehicles to the market from April 1, 2020. We are ready because we got an early start, plan, front loading and work with key suppliers," Goenka said.All technological challenges that were known were negated, he added."This time we had two levels of upgradation, there is a fear of compromise in fuel efficiency, performance of vehicle, drivability, NVH but we have ensured none of these were compromised in implementation of BS VI," Goenka said.In fact in some cases, the company has improved on some of these parameters. In some sense, the challenge of BS VI became an opportunity for giving a slightly better product in terms of all these parameters, he said.Goenka said the team was given two challenges at that time. First challenge was the target, which was non-negotiable, but with competitive cost on diesel portfolio.The second challenge which was more relevant in Mahindra's context was that Mahindra was not known for its gasoline engine but its diesel engine.Therefore the second challenge was to develop a portfolio of petrol engines which are globally competent."In fact, given that we had no petrol engine at that time we probably had an advantage that the petrol engines that we would launch would be the latest technology products," he said.The company has filed over 30 patents in the process of the transition.On petrol engine, Goenka said," we have a stamp of approval from both Ford and SsangYong. They have decided to use Mahindra's new petrol engine in their vehicles which means we have managed to develop engine which are globally competitive".

M&M to launch BS VI compliant vehicles soon

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