Diesel cars face last gasp as demand may be hit further with BS-VI norms

Regulatory uncertainty around diesel vehicles in markets like Delhi also has a bearing on the resale price of diesel cars

When American carmaker Ford launched its new compact utility vehicle (UV) Freestyle in India three months ago, it was expecting demand to be equally split between the petrol and the diesel variants. However, the company was left surprised. As much as 65 per cent of the domestic bookings came for petrol variants; the demand for diesel stood at just 35 per cent.

A month later, Honda launched the new Amaze and was also seeing a trend identical to the Freestyle. This is in sharp contrast to 2013 when the first-generation of the Amaze was launched. Back then, 80 per cent