Tata has finally come into the compact SUV CNG game with the Nexon CNG. It showed the car at the first-ever Bharat Mobility Expo and has now launched it with a starting price of Rs 8.99 lakh. When the car was first showcased we looked at how it stacked up against the Brezza CNG but now that we have more details, we are taking a second look at both cars.
Design highlights
As expected and also the fact that they are variants of the standard car, there are no visual changes for both cars on the inside and outside apart from CNG badges at the back and a CNG button on the centre console.
CNG specs
Let us lay out the numbers first. The Tata Nexon is the first car in the fray to get a turbocharged CNG-compatible petrol engine. This engine produces 98bhp/170Nm and can only be had with a six-speed MT. The Brezza uses Maruti 1.5-litre petrol that produces 86bhp/121.5Nm and can only be had with a five-speed MT.
Tank and mileage battle
The Brezza has a 55-litre CNG tank and with this powertrain, you get a claimed mileage of 25.51km/kg. The Nexon has a 60-litre tank but Tata has not revealed an official claimed figure. In our real-world mileage tests, we got 11.6km/kg for the city and 17.5km/kg for the highway giving us an average of 13km/kg.
It has also gone a different route in terms of packaging by introducing its twin-cylinder technology to Nexon. The standard car has 392 litres while the CNG Nexon offers 328 litres which is what the non-CNG Brezza offers as overall boot space. At the time of writing this story, Maruti said that it was exploring all available packaging options but officially nothing has emerged so far.
Feature list
You can have the Nexon CNG across a range of trims and even a top-spec Fearless+S with all the bells and whistles available with the Nexon range. The Brezza stops one below the top variant but is Rs. 2.34 lakh cheaper than the fully-loaded Nexon. A proper price rival would be the Creative+ dual-tone variant which is priced at Rs. 12.30 lakh (all ex-showroom). Both cars, as standard, get six airbags, ABS with EBD, ESC, child seat mounting points, seat belt reminder, speed warning and three-point seat belts for all occupants.
