The government’s push for stricter emission standards from Bharat Stage 4 to BSV and BSVI will lead to increase in prices in the small diesel car and SUV segments.
According to sources from the auto industry, the changes required to be made for diesel cars to be compliant with Euro 4 and Euro 5 emission standards will greatly increase the prices of even the small compact segment of diesel cars. The cars will require significant upgrade in technologies like the Diesel Particle Filter (DPF) and Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) which will make the cost of diesel cars go up by Rs. 60,000/- to Rs. 1 lakh.
Currently, diesel engines just require a catalytic converter which is BS4 compliant. Hence to move to BS5, it will require engine calibration and installation of the DPF and then the move to BS6 will require engine calibration and installation of DPF and SCR. Each time emission standards go up, it will result in the prices going up by around Rs. 40,000/- to Rs. 50,000/- for the end consumers as well, all this leading to a sharp reduction in small diesel cars by the time Euro 6 is introduced as already seen in European markets.
All automobile manufacturers are hence pushing the government to delay the introduction of the BS5 and BS6 standards so as to set up the required resources and strategies in place. The BS4 stage though is all set to be introduced by the year 2017 nationwide. The Auto Fuel Policy Committee has given a time frame between 2020 to 2024 for the adoption of Euro 4 standards, while the government is insisting for a more closer deadline. Automobile manufacturers are hovering over a time frame between 2019 to 2023 for the deadline to be set stating that this will give them enough time to plan out all the variables like resources and strategies required to meet the demand of the new changes in norms.
Coming to petrol engines, not much difference would be noticed as petrol engines being simpler in terms of their technology would require only minor tweaks and ECU changes which would increase the cost by just a little over Rs. 10,000/-. SIAM states it would help all the automobile manufacturers if the Government of India would introduce a well defined long term road map which they could follow to set up all the resources necessary for the transition from the old norms to the new.
