From 46.9% to 40.7% in a year: the petrol default is over, and India's car buyers have scattered across 4 Fuel Types
Pure petrol is down to 40.7% of new cars, its lead over the CNG-hybrid-electric bloc has shrunk from 46,568 cars to 1,218, CNG has shoved diesel off the podium, and the plug is 0.05 pp from catching the hybrid.
Petrol against the field - and the lead is down to 1,218 cars
Petrol's lead over the CNG, hybrid and electric bloc was 46,568 cars in July 2025. It is now down to 1,218.
July's ledger: 1,76,054 petrol cars against 1,74,836 running on CNG, hybrid or battery - petrol clings on by 1,218 cars, 40.7% to 40.4%. A year ago that lead was 46,568. Diesel, at 18.7%, watches from the third step.
The pump's pecking order just flipped
Petrol slid to 40.7% of July's registrations, -6.2 pp in a year. The silver changed hands too: CNG's 1,06,439 cars beat diesel's 81,491 - 24.6% against 18.8%. One in four new cars now runs on gas.
CNG's +42.8% sprint - and the fortress that profits from it
CNG grew +42.8% YoY and grabbed +3.6 pp of share - the biggest land grab of any fuel, plug included. And the banker is not hypothetical: Maruti sells 68.5% of India's CNG cars. Factory-fit gas is the fortress's quiet moat, while Mahindra banks diesel and Tata banks the plug.
| Maker | Regs | Share of that fuel | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Petrol 1,76,054 total | |||
| 🥇 | Maruti Suzuki India | 71,653 | 40.7% |
| 🥈 | Hyundai Motor India | 28,126 | 16.0% |
| 🥉 | Tata Motors | 22,746 | 12.9% |
| 4 | Kia India | 16,132 | 9.2% |
| CNG / LNG 1,06,439 total | |||
| 🥇 | Maruti Suzuki India | 72,954 | 68.5% |
| 🥈 | Tata Motors | 18,202 | 17.1% |
| 🥉 | Hyundai Motor India | 10,190 | 9.6% |
| 4 | Toyota Kirloskar Motor | 4,749 | 4.5% |
| Diesel 81,491 total | |||
| 🥇 | Mahindra & Mahindra | 41,922 | 51.4% |
| 🥈 | Hyundai Motor India | 9,779 | 12.0% |
| 🥉 | Kia India | 9,460 | 11.6% |
| 4 | Tata Motors | 8,391 | 10.3% |
| Hybrid 34,279 total | |||
| 🥇 | Maruti Suzuki India | 19,176 | 55.9% |
| 🥈 | Toyota Kirloskar Motor | 13,561 | 39.6% |
| 🥉 | Mercedes-Benz India | 1,149 | 3.4% |
| 4 | Honda Cars India | 162 | 0.5% |
| Electric 34,073 total | |||
| 🥇 | Tata Motors | 14,229 | 41.8% |
| 🥈 | Mahindra & Mahindra | 8,040 | 23.6% |
| 🥉 | JSW MG Motor India | 5,884 | 17.3% |
| 4 | Maruti Suzuki India | 1,656 | 4.9% |
An obituary published too early..
Diesel was supposed to be dying. In July it grew +18.8% and gave up just half a point of share.
81,491 diesel cars, +18.8% YoY, share down just -0.5 pp to 18.8%. One credible pillar: yellow plates - taxi and fleet registrations hit 44,651, up +21.7% YoY. The dying fuel will sell over 80,000 cars a month for a while yet.
From 2.6% to 7.9% in eighteen months: the plug's relentless staircase
Electric went from 2.58% of registrations in January 2025 to 7.88% in July - 34,073 cars, +91.6% YoY, five straight months above 5%.
Eighteen months that erased an 87,085-car lead
- Jan 2025Petrol's comfortable cushion
- Petrol 50.1%
- Alternatives 32.7%
- Diesel 17.2%
- Petrol's lead: 87,085 cars
- Aug 2025The alternatives clear a third
- Petrol 45.9%
- Alternatives 34.7%
- Diesel 19.4%
- Lead: 39,141 cars
- Jun 2026The cushion all but gone
- Petrol 42.3%
- Alternatives 40.2%
- Diesel 17.5%
- Lead: 9,201 cars
- Jul 2026Down to the wire
- Petrol 40.7%
- Alternatives 40.4%
- Diesel 18.8%
- Lead: 1,218 cars
0.05 points: the hybrid's lead over the plug has all but vanished
Hybrids took 7.93% of July's cars, electrics 7.88% - 206 cars and 0.05 pp apart, a gap that was 2.8 pp a year ago. Inside the EV market, Tata (41.8%), Mahindra (23.6%) and MG (17.3%) control 82.6%; Maruti holds 4.9%, barely ahead of debutant VinFast.
Telangana leads on electric - but adoption stops well short of pan-India
Telangana registered 20.2% of its July cars electric; Chandigarh 18.7%, Delhi 16.2%. Maharashtra, the biggest car state, manages 8.9%. EV retail is a fifteen-city land war, not a national rollout.
The road ahead
Two crossings are a formality's distance away: the alternatives bloc sits 1,218 cars behind petrol, the plug 206 cars behind the hybrid. Two decades of petrol-with-a-diesel-subplot have become a four-way contest - and petrol's majority is already long gone.