Mahindra & Mahindra invests Rs 1000 crore + to ready BS VI engines

The 1.2 turbo MPFI,Inline, 3 cylinder, all aluminium engine which produces around 110hp and 190-200Nm and which is already in the XUV 300 will be BS VI ready in another 3 to 4 months. This engine will be used by Ford next year for its platforms.

Another Turbo GDI, Inline 3 cylinder engine producing 130hp and 230Nm of peak torque is available in both Euro 6 and BS VI version. This will go into the SSangYong platform early next year. The engine uses a 250 bar system.

However, the company is not taking the 1.2 litre diesel engine that powers the KUV 100 to the BS VI level.  The cost increase will not be justified in this segment, it stated.

Mahindra & Mahindra converts challenges to opportunities

It took European auto companies 10 years and nine months to move from Euro 4 to Euro 5 and eventually to Euro 6 emission norms. This was between January 2005 and September 2015. On the other hand, Indian auto companies that adopted BS or Bharat Stage IV norms pan-India in April 2017, have got 3 years to hop skip and jump to BS VI levels. They will be skipping BS V norms and will have to be ready with their BS VI vehicle on April 1, 2020.

That’s a huge challenge. But surprisingly Mahindra & Mahindra has smartly chiseled away the several challenges into a multitude of opportunities. In a ‘Knowledge Sharing Session’ on “Demystifying BSVI”, Dr. Pawan Goenka, Managing Director &. Rajan Wadhera, President –Automotive Sector, Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. along with  their team told journalists that not only is M&M ready with their entire diesel portfolio but they have also developed a series of gasoline engines, all of which meet BS VI norms and do not compromise on fuel efficiency, power, driveability or fun of driving.

So what does the M&M armada consists of? For diesel that includes 8 engines, 16 platforms and 38 variants. All of these are now BS VI compliant. As for gasoline, the company is ready with 8 engines, 8 platforms and 12 variants.

 It took the company more than Rs 1000 crore of investment, fine tuning more than 2000 parts for both diesel and gasoline engines, new test beds and equipment at the Mahindra Research Valley in Chennai and not to forget the efforts of M&M’s huge force of engineers, their consultants from Bosch, AVL and Delphi and key suppliers like Magneti Mareli, Garret, Valeo, Delphi-TVS, Tenneco, among others.

Today more than 76 Mahindra vehicles are running across the country for all kinds of validation. Goenka said that one of the challenges was to develop a portfolio of petrol engines which are globally competitive.  Given that we did not have petrol engines at that time, we probably had an advantage that the petrol engines we would launch would be the latest technology petrol engines, he said.

We are ready on time and we see no technical risk of getting BS VI vehicles in the market from April 1, 2020. We are ready because we got an early start, and we worked with key suppliers and consultants, he added.

The company added state of the art facilities at Mahindra Research Valley.  “We probably have as good engine development facility as you would find anywhere in the world. We have also filed for 30+ patents in the process”, informed Goenka.

Goenka said that the challenge before the company is not as much about being ready but in managing the transition flawlessly. Just imagine that we have to ramp up and ramp down 100pc volume of our automotive business in a short span of two to three months. That’s a humungous challenge for suppliers and for our plants also. The second challenge will be the demand for the new products.

Need to ramp up BS VI models

It may be recalled that the Supreme Court has ruled that the last day of selling BS IV vehicles in the country is March 31, 2020. Said Goenka, “Overnight we cannot switch from BS IV to BS VI. That’s not possible. We have to start selling from sometime January or February 2020”. He stated BS VI fuel needs to be available pan India. In a BS VI vehicle you cannot put BS IV fuel.  It will immediately choke.  The system will practically stop functioning.  So in order to sell a single vehicle of BS VI, BS VI fuel will have to be available.  Fuel has to be available from Jan1, 2020.

The company also has to inform its suppliers around October or  November 2019 as to how many BS IV vehicles will be made. Whatever is not sold by March 31, 2020, it becomes scrap. So by latest mid November 2019 we have to tell how may BS IV vehicles are going to be made. We have to begun ramping up BS VI models. Any last minute change will be disastrous, warned Goenka. By early October, 2019 the Petroleum Ministry has to give us a firm timeline on the availability of BS VI fuel, he clarified.

Will these new BS VI vehicles be a lot more expensive than what is today? “There will be some sticker shock.  It is there everywhere in the world, more so because of the two step jump. Customers are by and large prepared for it. My guess is that for above 4 metre, a number below a lakh (Rs), smaller vehicle Rs 80,000. Petrol around Rs 20-25,000. But if they go into TGDI, then it becomes diesel kind,” he gave his personal view on it.

Technological tasks

Coming back to the several technological tasks that M&M not only took up and successfully accomplished, it was in essence all about reducing NOx, particulate matter, hydrocarbons and carbon dioxide. That meant a lot of changes had to be made at the engine level as well as exhaust level. 

The right use of Lean NOx Trap (LNT)  technology and the Selective catalytic reduction (SCR) technology had to be adopted for the engines. The Engine control Unit or the Engine Control Module had to be spruced up big time because of the presence of the several sensors. As for ensuring the right NVH  levels, fuel efficiency, driveability, the company had to look at every friction part that was rotating or moving so that they could reduce the friction and get the benefit. They worked on the turbocharger, on the fuel injection system, the exhaust system,  on the exhaust gas recirculation system,  touched every rotating and moving part and in the process got a 30pc friction reduction out of the system which got the company an increased fuel efficiency for their engines.

The cost was always a challenge. So while a typical European model incurred an X cost in its transition from Euro 4 to Euro 6, the company fixed an internal target of of .6X. it managed to get a 0.5x cost increase only, which was quite commendable.

After their marathon efforts, all current M&M engines which are currently in production are getting upgraded to BS VI.  In the gasoline portfolio, a 4 cylinder turbo GDI engine, producing 163hp and 280Nm of peak torque will find application in C segment cars. This engine is co developed with SangYong. It is a global engine in terms of technology and features.

Also, next year year there will be a new gasoline engine which will enhance Mahindra’s reputation in gasoline engines in future. But there has been a fallout too of this transition. Goenka  informed that the company is not taking the 1.2 litre diesel engine that powers the KUV 100 to the BS VI level.  The cost increase will not be justified in this segment, he said.

He also informed that the company has stopped the Jeeto van as it had to be equipped with airbag and ABS as per norms, which was simply not affordable for that segment.

Now that M&M has done its homework so perfectly, we will have to see how the new Modi government gets its act together to make sure BS VI fuel is available pan India by the end of this year at least.