India’s largest automobile manufacturer – Maruti Suzuki India has won millions of hearts with their budget offerings in the automobile industry for decades. The company this week revealed its plans for electric vehicles, CNG vehicles, and flex-fuel-powered cars in India. The manufacturer said that it will not launch an electric car in the Indian market before 2025. There is no launch date yet for Maruti’s first electric car in India. The carmaker, however, said that it is working on flex-fuel vehicle development and is also focussing on launching more CNG product offerings for the Indian market.
Addressing a virtual conference on the company’s second-quarter earnings, their Chairman RC Bhargava stated that under the current circumstances a lot of things in the EV ecosystem such as batteries, charging infrastructure, and electric supply are done by other parties and therefore the costing is not in the hands of the company. He also said that the decision to launch an electric vehicle in India will be made by its parent company – Suzuki, Japan.
“Unfortunately, we will not feel happy if we can (sell) 300 or 400 or 500 or even 1,000 cars (a month). For some reason, we have gone too much higher volumes, and volumes in 100s and even 1,000s, are very good, but they leave us a little unexcited. So we have to see if I start selling EVs I would like to sell maybe 10,000 EVs in a month or something like that,” Bhargava said at the conference. He also said that “If I’m selling 2 million cars a year, which I think it will be when things normalise, does it make sense to sell a car less than 1,00,000 a year out of 2 million?” responding to the query on the rising demand for EVs in India and the company’s views on the segment.
The company though hasn’t ruled out plans to enter electric mobility in India. But they also stated that launching an EV would depend on various market conditions, batteries, and how the infrastructure is built up. They also added that the potential costing is also not in their hands. The company had earlier in 2019 tested an electric vehicle based on its WagonR with plans to launch in 2020, but decided against a commercial launch for personal usage citing lack of infrastructure and government support.
Company’s like Tata Motors, on the other hand, has been receiving good response for their EVs, including the Tata Nexon EV and the Tata Tigor EV. So it remains to be seen as to how long Maruti Suzuki can resist launching the next booming segment in India.
Also Read: 2022 Maruti Suzuki WagonR EV spotted, set to shake up electric car market in India
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