Maruti Suzuki launches e-Vitara at Rs 10.99 lakh with battery-as-a-service option

The country’s largest carmaker Maruti Suzuki Tuesday launched its first electric vehicle e-Vitara in the local market with prices starting at Rs 10.99 lakh with battery-as-a-service (Baas) option.

Customers can avail of the battery at Rs 3.99 per km. JSW MG Motor India too offers battery-as-a-service option with the Windsor. Maruti Suzuki will offer 8 years or 160,000 km warranty on the e-Vitara. The company has also put in place an assured buyback programme for the car, through which it will purchase the vehicle from the owner at 60% of the value after three years.

The e-Vitara will be manufactured at Maruti Suzuki’s Gujarat plant, from where it will also be exported to more than 100 countries.


Partho Banerjee, senior executive officer (marketing and sales) at Maruti Suzuki said, “The electric vehicle market in India is almost at the tipping point. We are not only launching a product but an entire ecosystem with the e-Vitara. The EV penetration in the domestic market has been hovering around 4% and it is time that this market takes an exponential leap.”

Banerjee said from setting up adequate public charging infrastructure, addressing customer concerns regarding resale value, or ensuring availability of after sales and service network, the company has put in efforts as it feels it is not the product along but the overall package that makes the difference in customer ownership.

He said that Maruti Suzuki's EV strategy has been developed to ensure that the e VITARA becomes the primary EV choice for customers. With an ecosystem in place, Banerjee said adoption rate should gain pace. “We expect that penetration of electric vehicles in the Indian market will increase to 13-15% by 2030, from about 4% in 2025.”

In December last year, Maruti Suzuki India MD and CEO Hisashi Takeuchi had said that aligned with Suzuki's global vision, Maruti Suzuki plans to introduce multiple EVs in the country. "And to support this, our aim is to enable a network of over 1 lakh charging points across India by 2030, along with our Dealer and CPO partners," he had said.