Hyundai Venue, Creta, Alcazar, and Tucson Still Going Strong On Diesel

As diesel options continue to shrink, Hyundai’s SUV lineup carries onto offer the choice as per customer needs

• Hyundai India COO, Tarun Garg, has confirmed that the carmaker’s diesel cars will continue to be sold.

• Venue’s sales comprise 21 percent diesel buyers, while the same for Creta is 42 percent.

• Majority of the Alcazar and Tucson buyers prefer going for the diesel variants.

• The Venue, Creta, and Alcazar use the same 1.5-litre diesel engine, while the Tucson gets a 2-litre unit.

• Hyundai plans to launch more diesel cars in the future, alongside EVs.

With emission norms getting stricter, car manufacturers are slowly shying away from diesel engines in their lineups. However, Hyundai stays adamant on offering a diesel option for its larger offerings, i.e., the SUVs, since it still sees a strong demand for the same.

In a recent report, Tarun Garg, COO of Hyundai India, revealed the petrol and diesel sales split between the models that still offer the latter - Venue, Creta, Alcazar, and Tucson.

This shows that the presence of a diesel engine is still appreciated in bigger SUVs. The strong initial torque and the extra fuel efficiency of a diesel car appeals to the buyers who frequently undertake long-distance journeys and tend to go off-roading with their SUVs.

It is also worth noting that the SUVs with a diesel-oriented buyer are not the volume drivers for Hyundai. Even with this rate of demand, diesel models only account for around 20 percent of the brand’s sales according to the same report.

Also Read: Hyundai Venue Is The First Sub-4m SUV To Get ADAS

Diesel-powered Rivals

In case of the Hyundai Venue, there’s the Tata Nexon, Kia Sonet, and Mahindra XUV300 that also offer the choice of a diesel motor in the subcompact SUV segment. But the Hyundai Creta and Kia Seltos (essentially the same cars under the skin) have the monopoly of a diesel option in the compact SUV space.

For even bigger SUVs like the Hyundai Alcazar and Hyundai Tucson, the majority of the demand is for the diesel variants. The report further states that the waiting period for diesel variants is higher than that of petrol ones, revealing the strong demand for the former.

Hyundai Diesel Engines

While the Venue only gets a diesel-manual combination, the Creta and Alcazar get the choice of an automatic as well. Since Hyundai uses the same engine for the three models, it can keep them updated with more ease.

Also Read: Could Creta EV Be Hyundai’s First Mass Market Electric Car For India?

While Hyundai has had to discontinue the diesel option in its smaller offerings like the Grand i10 Nios and i20 hatchbacks, the Korean carmaker further plans to add more diesel cars and will keep updating its existing lineup with the option of the same. At the same time, the brand is also committed to bringing cleaner models and EVs to India with big investments for local manufacturing, and developing charging infrastructure as well.

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