Fiat's 1.3 Multijet diesel to bow out by end of decade

Fiats ubiquitous 1.3-litre diesel engine will be discontinued in India with the incoming of new Bharat Stage VI (BS-VI) emission regulations in 2020, as there are no plans to upgrade the engine to comply with the new norms. With Maruti, Fiats largest customer for this engine, and Tata Motors switching to their own, in-house-developed BS-VI diesel engines, there wont be any takers for the Fiat engine. Also, the future of Fiat itself is uncertain in India and its likely that parent company, Fiat-Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) will axe the Fiat brand and concentrate its resources on making Jeep a success. Even if FCA continues to sell Fiats in India, the sales volume of under 6,000 units a year is too small to justify the huge development costs required to upgrade the Multijet from BS-IV. After we lost Maruti and Tata as a customer, we knew that would spell the end of this engine, said a company source.