While most manufacturers are shying away from diesel engines, Tata Motors have managed to keep their diesel engines alive in quite a few of their cars. Among these, the Tata Harrier is solely available with a 170hp 2.0L diesel engine, while all its rivals are offered with a petrol engine as well. Tata Motors however have been planning a new petrol motor for the Harrier for quite a while, and now, a camouflaged test mule of the Harrier was spotted with some emissions testing equipment. This inevitably could be the upcoming Tata Harrier Petrol.
The Harrier Petrol will be powered by a 1.6L turbocharged petrol engine that is being developed by Tata Motors in-house. This, the company had announced at the 2019 Geneva Motor Show. Tata Motors however did not reveal any more details about the engine output at the time, but we expect this motor to produce about 150hp and 250Nm of torque. That will position it well amongst its competitors. The engine will feature direct injection tech, so you can expect good performance and efficiency from this engine.
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The transmission options are likely to be carried over from the diesel-powered Harrier. Tata Motors had said that they will offer both, a manual and an automatic gearbox with the Harrier petrol. We thus expect the current 6-speed manual and the Hyundai-sourced 6-speed automatic torque converter gearbox to be carried over to the Harrier petrol as well. With a petrol engine under its hood, the Harrier could hugely widen its appeal.
Currently, all rivals of the Harrier - the Hyundai Creta, Kia Seltos and MG Hector - come with turbo-petrol engines under their hood with about 140hp of power. If Tata manages to squeeze out more power than its rivals, they could seriously turn the game in their favor. The Mahindra XUV500, just like the Harrier, also does not get a petrol engine in this segment. As for Hyundai and Kia, they even offer the Creta and Seltos with 1.5L naturally aspirated petrol engines that are priced just under INR 10 lakh.
Speaking of prices, with the introduction of a petrol engine, the Harrier will see a drop in its starting price as well as its top-end price. Currently, prices for the Tata Harrier start from INR 13.84 lakh (ex-showroom) and we expecting prices to drop by around INR 1 lakh for each of the variants. So the Tata Harrier Petrol could be priced from about INR 12.9 lakhs. It is expected to go on sale sometime around 2021.
Stay tuned to IndianAutosBlog.com for Tata updates more and other four-wheeler news.
[Image Source : Rushlane]
