Tata banking heavily on its petrol engines

Tata Motors have focused the spotlights on their newly developed range of petrol engines, with the introduction of the 1.2L turbocharged Revotron engine, in the upcoming Zest and Bolt. Even though the company did offer cars with petrol engine options in the past, it is their diesel cars which outsold them and how! Their petrol engines currently make up only 5% of its sales volumes and can be described as mediocre at best, when compared to the competition.

Mr. Ranjit Yadav, president of the passenger vehicles business at Tata Motors, stated in an interview with Financial Express that the company is gradually moving towards being a ‘fuel-agnostic’ carmaker, with market share equally balanced between petrol and diesel offerings.

The Revotron specs are impressive on paper and Mr. Yadav claims that this new Revotron motor is expected to be a game-changer for Tata. This engine is developed exclusively by Tata with inputs from global players like AVL, Bosch, Honeywell, Mahle and INA.

With diesel prices rising at a steady rate, the gap between petrol and diesel vehicles being sold in India is diminishing, and Tata has identified this opportunity in the market. The Zest which will be the first car featuring this engine will be launched soon, shortly followed by the Bolt. Tata is banking heavily on these two cars and have taken a long time to the launch these cars as they wanted to ensure that no stone is left unturned.

Another interesting statement by Mr. Yadav was that Tata plans to launch two completely new vehicles every year for the next five years. Finally, Tata Motors seems to have realised that their product life cycle is way too long to sustain in a competitive market like India.