Tata Motors has always said the largest single investment in its history is the one being made to transition its cars to Bharat Stage 6 or BS6 by April 2020. So while the existing Tata Tiago hatchback and Tata Tigor subcompact sedan will transition with both fuel types, some older models may not make the cut. Both the Tiago and Tigor have been successful models for Tata Motors. It has sold 92,286 unit of the Tiago and 29,038 unit of the Tigor in in 2018 and it's these sales figures that have assured them of future generations. But there lies the difference. "In the future our powertrain strategy will be guided by consumer preference. We see it largely being gasoline (petrol) for the private user. For those two models (Tiago and Tigor) it will be gasoline" said Rajendra Petkar, CTO Tata Motors.
Both the next-gen Tiago and Tigor will be petrol-only models
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And the next generations of the two cars are already under development - and will use the Alfa platform - as part of the carmaker's strategy to migrate all passenger vehicle lines to just two platforms - Alfa and Omega. The Land Rover derived Omega platform has already seen the first product - the Tata Harrier - hit the market. The first Alfa product will be the Altroz hatchback, which goes on sale soon, hot on the heels of its high interest debut at the ongoing Geneva Motor Show 2019. The Altroz is also getting an EV variant next year, and given Tata's commitment that each new vehicle will come with an electrified option, we can expect the same for the Tiago and Tigor.
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Tata might introduced EV variants of the cars as well if there is market demand by then
Tata has begun the development of a range of new powertrains, and while the focus will be on petrol and electric. While the EV piece is not immediate, petrol then becomes so, and this is true not just for the BS6 transition, but well beyond too; and as such applies to the volumes models like Tiago, Tigor and even Nexon in the short-term. "We took a very hard look at which powertrains can sustain beyond 2020, and which powertrains should not be there. And therefore whether we can bring the synergy and rationalise the entire powertrain portfolio. We rely a lot on the new-gen 1.2 litre, 3-cylinder gasoline engine. But the way we conceptualised the 1.2 was to always create a 4-cylinder 1.6. If you have to go for turbocharged, or dual/single VVT, or if you have to go for GDi at a later date, then the architecture should allow us to be able to do that. And that is already built-in. So the modularity and scalability is something which is the DNA as far as Tata Motors is concerned."
