The company was quick to respond to the ban and downsized the engine to come up with the 1.99-litre (1997cc) mHawk engine for the Scorpio and the XUV500. Mahindra assured us that performance was not compromised on and started selling the car in NCR. However, the Supreme Court lifted the ban in August this year and mentioned that the manufacturers will have to pay 1 per cent green cess to the government. Considering the current situation, we expected Mahindra to revert to its 2.2-litre diesel engine but the company's Executive Director, Dr. Pawan Goenka said otherwise.
He said, "We are continuing with the 1.99-litre diesel engine for the time being and the two main reasons for this. The first being that there is no compromise that the customer has to make for the 1.99-litre engine therefore there is no reason for us to change to 2.2-litre engine. The other is that we don't know what the final judgement would be. Right now it is an interim judgement. So we don't want to go back to 2.2-litre and then when some judgement comes again move to 1.99--litre engine."
He mentioned that if required, the company can shift back to equipping the cars with 2.2-litre mHawk engines almost overnight. He also mentioned that imposing a cess will not really help in tackling pollution levels and. Goenka stated that "By imposing any kind of cess you are in a sense saying that even if you are meeting the regulations you still need to pay a penalty."
The 1.99-litre Scorpio costs between Rs. 9.67 to 12.75 lakh, while the XUV500 1.99-litre costs between Rs. 11.58 and 15.51 lakh. Prices for the automatic variants of the XUV500 with the 1.99-litre engine starts from Rs. 14.51 lakh going up to 17.31 Lakh (all prices ex-showroom, Delhi).
