Maruti Suzuki Plans To Launch Its First Electric Vehicle Model In 2025

Maruti Suzuki will manufacture electric vehicles in India and it plans to roll out its EV ambition from the Suzuki Motor Gujarat plant. It is aiming at the year 2025 to launch its first EV model.

Hisashi Takeuchi, Maruti Suzuki’s Managing Director and CEO said, “We will launch multiple electric vehicles models in India, this is our bid to catch up with competitors and become a leader in the segment. At present we are aware we are not in the EV race. We are a little behind our competitors in introducing the (EV) model to the Indian market, but we see that still, the market demand for those EVs is limited. Actually, sales of EVs in the Indian market are still very, very limited.”

In the year 2019 Maruti Suzuki had tested an electric vehicle based on its WagonR with plans to launch in 2020; this did not happen as it then decided against a commercial launch for personal usage citing lack of infrastructure and government support and has maintained that at the current prices it would be difficult to sell affordable EVs at mass scale.

We would be wrong in thinking that Maruti Suzuki has given away the first mover advantage in the EV segment to competitors like Tata Motors. Hisashi added, “But that does not mean we are doing nothing about EV. We have done a very extensive test of our EV utilising our existing models and putting those batteries and motors and everything into this existing model. We have been doing this test for more than a year with multiple cars in the Indian environment so that we are sure that our EV technology will be good in the environment, which is very, very tough in India.”

Tata Motor leads the electric passenger vehicle segment in India

Tata Motors led the electric passenger vehicle segment in India 2021-2022 as per industry body, Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations of India (FADA). Its retail numbers were 15,198 units and a market share of 85.37 per cent in the vertical. The total electric passenger vehicle retail sales last fiscal stood at 17,802, up over three-fold, from 4,984 units in FY21.

The government is pushing for EV sales penetration to rise to 30 per cent for private cars by 2030. This means 10 percent of cars in India are to be EV by 2030. Hisashi said, “When the volume expands of course, we would like to be a leader in the Indian automotive space, which is not just limited to IC (internal combustion) engines but all passenger cars. Also in the EV space, we would like to become the number one and the leader in the Indian automotive space. We have been doing tests and developing models prepared for India specification that it's not just one. We said by 2025 we will introduce (an EV) but there are plans (for others) to follow. I'm sure that we can be very strong in the EV space also when we introduce our products into this EV market. EV is still very expensive and with the current technology it is quite difficult to make a very affordable EV.”

This means Maruti Suzuki will be launching multiple models in due course once the company launches its first EV in 2025.

What would a Maruti Suzuki Electric Vehicle Cost?

As per Hisashi Takeuchi, Maruti Suzuki’s Managing Director and CEO it is not easy to determine and tell as of now as to what the price of a Maruti Suzuki EV car will be, whether or not it will be under 10 lakh. The reason as to why it is difficult to have a cost-competitive and less expensive EV is because of the cost of a battery.

An EV can become cost competitive if the battery is smaller but that would reduce the range and in turn will create range anxiety for consumers. This meant such an EV could be successfully sold only if there is adequate charging infrastructure with quick charging options.

In March 2022, parent Suzuki Motor Corporation had announced that it would invest around 150 billion yen (about Rs 10,445 crore) by 2026, for local manufacturing of Battery Electric Vehicles (BEV) and BEV batteries in Gujarat.

“The investment this time is at Suzuki Motor Gujarat plant but that does not mean that we will not produce EVs in Maruti Suzuki's plants…we have to produce in every factory over Maruti Suzuki as well as Suzuki Motor Gujarat (SMG) once EV becomes popular in India,” Hisashi said.

The decision to start EV production from the SMG plant was taken because this EV is a strategically important model for the entire Suzuki group globally. The group plans to not only sell this EV in the Indian market but also export it. At present Maruti Suzuki has over 2.7 lakh pending orders. Although the company's market share has dropped to 43.4 per cent in FY22 as compared to 47 per cent in FY21, the company expects it to improve with the planned launch of new SUVs and improvement in the supply chain. Maruti Suzuki India’s dispatches to dealers last fiscal stood at 13, 31,558 units, as compared with 12,93,840 units in the 2020-21 financial year.