Maruti's diesel pullout could help foreign car makers make rapid gains

The cause for Maruti's radical call was a combination of factors - weak growth forecasts, fuel price deregulation that has narrowed the gap between diesel and petrol, and stricter emission norms

Last week, Maruti Suzuki, the country's largest auto maker, announced it would move away from making a large section of cars equipped with diesel engines. Those include the Swift, the D'Zire, the Baleno, the Brezza, and they constitute some 400,000 cars or a quarter of their annual volumes. The cause for Maruti's radical call was a combination of factors that included weak growth forecasts, fuel price deregulation that has narrowed the gap between diesel and petrol, and stricter emission norms. 

Think of it as a Hobson's Choice when volumes are incumbent on a technology or a genre to swift changes in