In a bid to drive demand in the market, second largest car manufacturer and largest car exporter in India, Hyundai Motor India (HMI) is likely to soon launch a diesel version of their new models -i10 and i20- in the market.

Speaking on this, Arvind Saxena (Senior Vice President, HMI) said, “We will launch the i20 diesel for the domestic market this year. But we are yet to finalize the engine size.”

It is learnt that the i20 diesel would be launched before the diesel version of the i10.

However, the Korean auto major has still not finalized the size of the car engine.

The diesel variant of the i20, with a 1.6 litre engine is already available in the European markets.

In India, HMI has a 25% market share in the 800,000 small car segment.

As compared to petrol version, the diesel version of Hyundai i20 is expected to be priced more than 20-25%.

Moreover, the 1.4 litre CRDi engine that offers an 88 BHP of power is anticipated to provide a fuel efficiency of around 20 km per litre of fuel.

Though the company has a more powerful engine that is used on export models but it is believed that it would not use them because of their higher costs.

At present, Tata Motors dominates the diesel engine market in small cars with its ‘Indica’ model.