Maruti to lead Suzuki's gasoline drive in India, LatAm and Asean

Maruti Suzuki will increasingly take a lead role in developing cleaner vehicles running on gasoline for India as well as other key geographies like Latin America and Asean for Suzuki Motor Corporation (SMC). While the Japanese parent, along with alliance partner Toyota, will focus on developing electric and hybrid vehicles, Maruti Suzuki (MSIL) is executing internal combustion engine-related projects, which will make gasoline vehicles cleaner, company officials said.

"Unlike Europe, there is a lot of potential for internal combustion engine vehicles in India," said CV Raman, chief technology officer of Maruti Suzuki India. "If EV is going to be 15-20% of the market by 2030, the larger market will continue to be ICE. That development will be increasingly entrusted to MSIL R&D. We are building on our development capabilities and capacity," he told ET.

Industry estimates that six million passenger vehicles will be sold in the Indian market every year by the end of the decade. Of this, about one million vehicles will be electric, necessitating clean-tech interventions for several million new vehicles slated to be added over the next eight years.

Maruti Suzuki is accordingly working on a range of new technologies – from higher ethanol blends in gasoline vehicles to flex fuel and compressed biogas – to bring down fuel consumption and carbon emissions.

The carmaker aims to convert all models in its portfolio to run on electricity, hybrid technology or biofuels in the next 7-10 years.

“We are looking at various technologies, improving emission from ICE vehicles is a big part of our strategy,” Raman said. “We have changed engines from KB to KC series. All our vehicles are E20 compliant from April 1, 2023. This will help reduce consumption of fossil fuels.”

Maruti Suzuki has already showcased the flex fuel WagonR, which will go into production in 2025. The company has 14 brands running on CNG.

After the government rationalised prices of natural gas earlier this year, the company has seen an uptick in demand for CNG-driven vehicles. In fact, with the price differential between gasoline and CNG widening, nearly a fourth of the company’s sales have started coming in from the fuel.

“The government now wants to move to compressed bio gas (CBG), which is carbon negative. There is work happening on that too,” Raman said.

Of the four models Maruti Suzuki showcased last year, three – Alto, Brezza and Fronx – were developed in India, a testament to the capability of Suzuki Motor Corp’s only R&D centre outside Japan.

“We will continue to work and support Suzuki globally, we will be doing more work here”, Raman said. “We are working on global product development programmes for India and markets like Latin America, Asean, and neighbouring countries such as Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.”

India is already a key base for Suzuki, accounting for more than 60% of global production. On the sales front, too, India grew by more than a fourth to account for 95% of the additional 262,000 units SMC sold worldwide in the first nine months of the year. Volumes in home market Japan inched up 10% in the same period, but shrank in Europe and in the rest of Asia by 35% and 4.8%, respectively.

India now accounts for 55% of overall automobile sales at SMC, up from 49% in the corresponding period of the last financial year. Suzuki – which is yet to report full year earnings – is expected to have sold 3.02 million units globally in FY23.