Road rage

New Delhi, May 22: Ford will launch the diesel Fusion by the end of this year.

The technology for the hatchback will be similar to the one used in the diesel version of the Fiesta sedan, Arvind Mathew, managing director and president, Ford India, told The Telegraph.

Sources said the car would have a 1.4-litre engine and sport a price tag of Rs 6-6.3 lakh.

Its competitors are the Indigo Décor, Fiesta diesel and Hyundai’s Verna and the Accent.

Ford had relaunched the Fusion in August last year, but sales were disappointing.

However, Mathew said the company had been selling the Fiesta in “good numbers, including the diesel models”.

The company sold 5,382 units in March which is 40 per cent more than the sales of 3,856 units in February.

Nearly 20 per cent of the sales in the compact segment comes from diesel cars.

Ford is now targeting Tier-II and Tier-III cities. The company plans to raise the number of dealers by 18 to 135 by the end of the year.

“Volumes in smaller cities may be low but the growth rate is higher than in the metros. We are trying to expand our geographical spread. There is a big untapped market in Tier-II and Tier-III cities,” Mathew said.

The company has a capacity of about 1 lakh cars at its Tamil Nadu plant. It produces about 65,000 units.

Mathew said Ford was “not averse” to small cars “but there are other opportunities which also need to be tapped”.

He said, “At the moment we are concentrating on adding freshness to our existing line of models. There are no new models we are planning as of now.”

In March, Ford launched a new version of the Endeavour SUV and the Ikon.