In recent days, the Government of India has took many serious decisions like ban on the registration of new diesel vehicle over 2000 cc of displacement, ordered to de-register all the diesel vehicles that are more than 10 years old, etc to take down the serious pollution issue. Along with the favorable effects, this also came as major blow to many automobile makers in the country. Companies like Honda, Toyota, etc has already made up their mind to halt further investment, meanwhile, Mercedes is in no mood to stop the efforts and planning to introduce a petrol alternative of each of its models.
During an interview with Autocar India, Roland S Folger, Managing Director and CEO of Mercedes-Benz India Said, “I think that the most important thing that we did to mitigate the impact of the ban is to register the petrol versions of our cars, and by September this year, we will have a petrol version of each of the cars in our model line-up, right from the A-class, B-class, and so basically, we are going back to where we were 10 years ago.”
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If we get one look at the company’s line-up, only two models namely the GLE and GLS SUV are presently available in India with a single diesel engine unit. These are currently powered by a 3.0-litre V6, turbocharged diesel motor that makes out 255 Bhp of power and 600 Nm of torque. Moreover, the GLE also comes with a 2.1-litre, 4-cylinder, turbocharged diesel engine that churns out 201 Bhp of power and 500 Nm of torque. All these engines are packed with a 9-speed automatic gearbox that dispatch the power at all the corners.
According to the source, the petrol engine is expected to get a 3.0-litre V6 mechanism that will push the car with about 333 Bhp of power along with 480 Nm of torque. Besides, the power comes at all the wheels with the help of a 7-speed automatic gearbox. If the media reports turn out to be true, both the new variants will make their appearance in the Indian auto segment by September, 2016.
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