This week Renault India unveiled the Kiger. A sub-4 metre SUV, it will be the tenth such vehicle model in India. It will be available only in a petrol engine: The 1.0-litre unit in a naturally-aspirated version (72PS and 96Nm) and a turbocharged version (100PS and 160Nm). The claimed fuel efficiency of the car is 20 km/litre.
To begin with, it will be available with a five-speed manual gearbox and an AMT gearbox; the X-TRONIC automatic CVT will be offered shortly after the Kiger’s launch, which is expected to happen in March 2021.
With sales of 3,32,406 units in the April-December 2020 period, sub-4 metre SUVs (B-SUVs, according to industry association SIAM) are next only to hatchback cars in popularity. The B-SUV sub-segment also forms half of total SUV sales in India (6,77,107 units in the same period) and almost one-fifth of total passenger vehicle sales (17,77,874 units).
The first B-SUV to be launched in India was Ford EcoSport (in 2012), followed by Maruti Suzuki Vitara Brezza (in 2016), Honda WR-V (in 2017), Tata Nexon (in 2017), Mahindra XUV300 (in 2019), Hyundai Venue (in 2019), Kia Sonet (in 2020), Toyota Urban Cruiser (in 2020) and Nissan Magnite (in 2020).
The Kiger will be the tenth.