Tata invested Rs1,200 cr for BS VI emission compliance: report
27 May 2019
Tata Motors started the process of upgrading to BS VI emission norms soon after the government confirmed of skipping BSV and announced the deadline for switch over from BS IV to BS VI norms, reports said today.
A report in The Hindu cited Tata Motors managing director and CEO Guenter Butschek as saying that upgrading to BS VI would cost a lot more for manufacturers than visible outside. While the exact amount needed for the transition is difficult to guess, he said, meeting BS6 norms would cost manufacturers thousands of crores of rupees.
Everything from components to manufacturing plants and assembly lines need to be upgraded, Butschek told the paper in an interview. The company, he said, has already invested Rs1,200 crore in the transition to BS VI.
He said this amount was invested in last fiscal, more is expected to be invested this year. He did not reveal fresh investment
While details about the investment was not revealed, it is clear that Tata Motors may discontinue some models and upgrade select models to meet BS VI. In any case all new and upcoming models of Tata Motors will be BS VI compliant.
And in future, Tata Motors will make fewer diesel cars than today considering the cost of making diesel engines BS VI compliant.
President of Tata Motors’ passenger vehicles business Mayank Pareek cited concerns over the added investment in development of small diesel engines. In fact, Tata Motors plans to stop producing small diesel engine cars from April 2020.The company will wait for market denad to rise before reintroducing these vehicles. Tata Motors sells diesel variants of most of its models.
Recently, Tata’s Tiago hatchback got a diesel engine option along with the Tigor compact sedan. The Nexon compact SUV, Zest sedan and the recently launched Harrier SUV also will get diesel engine options.