Kia Sonet Diesel-Automatic Spotted Testing (It’s Not CNG) | V3Cars

With the X-Line turbo petrol engine, it gets ‘7DCT’ badging while the X-Line diesel gets the ‘AUTO’ badging on the front fenders. While it’s not relevant in the case of the X-Line variant, it’s worth mentioning that the Sonet’s variants with the turbo petrol engine and the auto-clutch manual transmission (ACMT) get ‘iMT’ badging.

It’s clearly visible that the Sonet variant undergoing testing in this case has the ‘AUTO’ badging. So, it’s understandably the diesel-automatic powertrain testing by ARAI. It’s possible that this is going through the BS6 phase-2 testing for the diesel-auto powertrain and it could soon go on sale with the necessary updates.

Also Read: Kia Sonet Turbo Petrol vs Diesel - Which One Is Better?

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The confusion around this test car being a CNG powertrain arises from the fact that we’ve seen the Dzire with similar kit hanging from the back a few months before it got the CNG powertrain. While it’s likely to help the Sonet with sales if it gets the CNG kit, there’s a chance that it could also negatively impact the Sonet brand.

Also Read: Kia Sonet CNG 1.0L Turbo Petrol Spied In April 2022

Some car buyers associate CNG with affordability and thus it dilutes the brand of a premium vehicle. Meanwhile, Toyota and Maruti Suzuki’s decision to offer factory CNG with their respective C-segment SUVs will help us gauge how the market perceives a big petrol-CNG SUV.

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