Amid the uncertainty over the fate of diesel cars in the country, luxury car maker Jaguar Land Rover is expediting roll out of its petrol models, to protect its share in the Indian market. Tata Motors-owned JLR, which on Monday launched the two-litre petrol variant of Land Rover Discovery Sport at a price of Rs.56.50 lakh onwards (ex-showroom, Delhi), said that the ban on select diesel vehicles in Delhi-NCR had impacted its sales in the region by about 10 per cent.
“While we already had plans to bring in the petrol variant, it was to be launched later in the year. When we learnt about the ban, we decided to expedite and bring forward the launch of this vehicle.
The NCR market is a significant market. We are strengthening portfolio by bringing in petrol variants to protect our market share,” JLR India President Rohit Suri said.
He, however, added that the company had been seeing a gradual demand shift from diesel to petrol in the Indian market due to the narrowing price difference between the two fuels.
Mr. Suri said the company had definitely seen an impact because of the ban of select diesel vehicles by the Supreme Court in Delhi-NCR.
“We saw impact in our overall sales. Customers are deferring purchase decision depending on revised dates that are coming from Supreme Court. NCR accounts for about 20 per cent of our sale, roughly 10 per cent of this was impacted,” he said.
Mr. Suri said the company continued to remain positive about the Indian market.
