Last October, the Supreme Court announced that the Indian automotive industry will transit from the Bharat Stage (BS)-IV emission norms to the BS-VI emission norms on April 1, 2020, which was in demand for a long time as all other country’s in the world shifted to new norms long time back.
It’s a great step if you see it from the aspect that it’s good for nature but when you talk about its effects on the auto industry they are devastating which could be seen from the depression in the auto industry in India.
The sales of the vehicle have gone down and the auto industry is facing big losses. BS-VI-compliant vehicles will be more expensive.
Diesel vehicles and economy-segment motorcycles will see a sharp increase in price, which will keep customers away for some time.
CEV BS-IV norms will be fully adapted in India on 1 April 2020 and these norms are equivalent to Euro-VI norms currently in place across countries in Europe.
The changes that you will be able to see in a vehicle with the introduction of the new norms, on-board diagnostics (OBD) become mandatory for all vehicles.
The OBD unit will be able to identify likely areas of malfunction by means of default codes stored on a computer, thus ensuring that the sophisticated emission control device, which is fitted in a BS-VI vehicle.
Also, the difference in carbon emission between diesel and petrol engines will reduce substantially. Now the automakers have spent a large amount to upgrade existing models and make them BS-VI-complaint.
The effect can be felt from the point that the number of product launches has declined in the past year.
Firms are looking at products that won’t need many changes before the new norms take effect. Two- and four-wheeler makers have started pulling capacity expansion plans, as they expect demand to fall.
There will be a substantial impact on the cost of construction equipment with engines higher than 50 HP after the implementation of new emission norms.
The cost is going to increase substantially for any machines using engines more than 50 HP and there would be an impact of anywhere in the range of Rs 1 lakh-5 lakh on key products.
The auto industry is currently under stress but it should make investments on their end too in order to speed up the research and development process and improve their own infrastructure like the manufacturing plants to make their offering to new norms.