Demand for 2017 Hyundai Verna petrol, automatic variants rise; diesel craze at a low ebb?

The craze for diesel models is slowly receding in India. Now, more and more people prefer petrol and other variants when making purchase decisions.

According to new reports, the sales of the new Hyundai Verna is a testimony to this emerging trend. A report of CarandBike said there has been a noticeable surge in demand for petrol models of the Verna. Of the 45,000 enquiries received for the new sedan, 40 percent were for petrol models.

Hyundai launched the new Verna in India on August 22. The new avatar of the sedan garnered over 4,000 bookings in just 18 days and the demand seems to be on the rise.

The report also adds most buyers are opting for automatic variants of the new Verna. It might be recalled that Hyundai Verna rival, Honda City, fared poor over lack of a diesel variant. Honda was forced to introduce diesel engine to catch up.

The new Verna is currently powered by 1.6-litre petrol and diesel mills. While the 1.6-litre petrol engine churns out 121 bhp and 151 Nm of peak torque, the diesel engine makes 126 bhp and 260 Nm of torque. Both engines come mated to either a six-speed manual transmission or a six-speed automatic torque converter unit.

The introductory price tag of the new Verna starts at Rs 7.99 lakh and will be available to only the first 20,000 customers. The new Verna competes against the likes of Maruti Suzuki Ciaz, Honda City, Volkswagen Vento and Skoda Rapid.

Source: CarandBike