April 19, 2022
Blog Admin
Maruti Suzuki is testing its EVs , launch expected by 2025
Maruti Suzuki has been currently testing 50 electric Wagon R units in the country and will roll out its first electric vehicle (EV) in India by 2025. Maruti has already started its work for establishing our factory for EVs and localisation of batteries
Hisashi Takeuchi, MD & CEO, Maruti Suzuki India, said, “Weather conditions here are tough for using EVs, so we have to make them perfectly safe,” Takeuchi said in an interaction with BigGaddi.com
The CEO informed that the Indian EV market is very small and the market share of EVs will only be 10% by 2030. Suzuki Motor Corporation announced last month it would invest Rs 10,445 crore in Gujarat by 2026 to locally manufacture electric vehicles and batteries.
The CEO observed that in order to have an overall market share of 50% in India, the company needs to have a big presence in the SUV segment. “We have a pipeline to make a strong comeback in the SUV space,” Takeuchi said, adding the SUV market is almost 40% of the total market.
While the shortage of semiconductors has eased there will be no significant improvement in the next few months. “There is still a shortage and I think this will continue for a while,” Takeuchi said. He noted that although the unavailability of diesel models has hurt the company’s volumes, a strong recovery has been made with CNG models, which now account for about 17% of the total sales. The company sold around 163,000 CNG cars in FY21 and 235,000 units last year, an increase of 44%.
“In the long run, we see CNG as a viable option. The government is now expanding CNG stations from 3,300 nationwide to more than 12,000. With this strong government support, we think the CNG market will expand further and we too can increase volumes,” he said.
Maruti’s market share in the domestic passenger vehicle (PV) segment dropped to 43% in FY22 from 48% in the previous year, due in large measure to the shortage of chips. The company has close to 300,000 pending bookings at present.