Tata Motors Will Drop Petrol Variants Of New Harrier And Safari But They Need To Come Fast

While diesel is seen as the fuel of choice for big SUV buyers, petrol has also found a favour, especially in the Delhi-NCR market.

The Tata Safari facelift and the Tata Harrier will soon get petrol engines.

Tata Motors recently launched the new Harrier and Safari facelift in India and along with that both received GNCAP 5-star safety rating. However, both were launched with diesel engines across the different trim levels. While diesel is seen as the fuel of choice for big SUV buyers, petrol has also found a favour, especially in the Delhi-NCR market.

Hence, a petrol engine for both is under development and it will come, but Tata Motors needs to drop the petrol variants in the market fast.

It is indeed coming but is still some time away while the engine was shown at the Auto Expo and it is a 1.5l turbo GDi petrol, which develops 168 bhp and 280Nm with being a 4-cylinder unit. This engine will mostly find its way into the Curvv production version first and then will most probably come in the Safari plus the Harrier facelift. While diesel still dominates, petrol accounts for a small number of sales in this segment, which Tata Motors is obviously keen to enter. If we talk about the rivals for the Safari and Harrier, all get petrol engines too.

The Safari and Harrier facelift come with a 2.0 L diesel engine for now along with 6-speed automatic and manual options. The 1.5l turbo unit could come with an automatic option including a DCT most probably along with a manual gearbox. This will also lower the entry pricing for the Harrier and Safari along with enabling the Harrier to compete better with compact SUVs.

Not just petrol, of course, as Tata wants to expand its EV lead with the electric version of the Harrier which it also showed at the Auto Expo and that is also crucial to strategy along with the petrol version of course.