Hot sales? Hyundai Verna,i20 output up

The company has increased sourcing of diesel engines from South Korea following increased demand of such cars in India due to a big difference in retail prices of petrol and diesel.

Commenting on the development,HMIL Director (Marketing and Sales) Arvind Saxena said: “Increased supply will ease the waiting period substantially. We expect the waiting period for the diesel Verna to drop from 6 months to 2-3 months and for the new iGen i20 to about a month.”

Last year,HMIL had put on hold its Rs 400-crore diesel engine plant.

The plant was envisaged to have an annual capacity of 1.5 lakh units for three types of engines — 1.1 litre,1.4 litre and 1.6 litre for the domestic market.

With the Budget for 2012-13 leaving the tax structure of diesel-driven vehicles unchanged,the company had recently said that it was evaluating the situation and would take a decision soon.

In 2011,HMIL’s domestic sales increased to 3,73,709 units,registering a growth of 4.76 per cent from 3,56,717 units in the previous year.