Diesel manual has made a comeback (of sorts) in the D-segment after a gap of more than a year with Hyundai and Kia re-introducing the MT option alongside their iMT and torque converter options. This now means the entire lot of diesel players in the fray all have three pedal options.
Currently, Hyundai, Kia, MG, Mahindra and Tata all have diesel power and apart from MG all offer MT and AT options for their diesel powertrains. Hyundai and Kia had slowly replaced their MT options over the last year or so and began dropping their diesel MT options in favour of iMTs (intelligent manual transmission) as their entry-level option.
In the Hyundai lineup, it is now available for the Creta, Alcazar while at Kia it is available with both the Seltos and the Carens. What’s more the diesel MT option is not limited to lower variants but is also available with the top versions of each of the cars in the Hyundai and Kia range. This is a similar story at Mahindra, Tata and MG as well. The large number of diesel MT options is indicative of consumer demand for three-pedal options but also of a trend where there is demand for such cars in the chauffeur-driven market.