Mahindra gears up to invest in petrol technology

Mahindra Mahindra (MM) has started exploring all its options courtesy the recent ban on diesel vehicles by the Supreme Court. One of the worst hit carmakers, Mahindra has made it clear that it won’t be relying on diesel vehicles alone. Thus, the automaker has now announced that it will be investing up to Rs. 1,000 crore in developing petrol technology.While talking to The Economic Times, Mr. Pawan Goenka, MM executive director, said, "Over the next two-three years, we will end up spending Rs 1,000 crore in putting petrol engines in our vehicles. We are working on 1.5-litre petrol engine right now. The 2.2-litre petrol will come in Scorpio and XUV500 in mid-term."

He elaborated that there will be four engines available in petrol viz. 1.2 litre, 1.5 litre, 1.6 litre and 2.2 litre. These engines will be strapped by MM across entire their entire product portfolio, in some time. He further told that they are working with Ssangyong for the same and the engines employed in KUV100 and Tivoli are a result of combined efforts.

Mr. Goenka stated that the company is also reviewing opportunities to share platforms with Ssangyong. The first of the petrol engines developed jointly with SMC was a 1.2-litre mFalcon G80, which now has been strapped in KUV100. “Platform sharing is more difficult. We are looking at platforms right now and when there is a right opportunity, we will definitely look at sharing platforms. SMC brokeeven in the last quarter of calendar 2015. Certainly, the focus until now was more on turning around the company in terms of products volumes, union labour issues, brand building. We have managed to do all of that reasonably well. Now we will focus on financial turnaround,” Mr. Goenka was elaborated.

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