Maruti Suzuki India
will launch electric vehicles in the country only after 2025 as demand for such
vehicles at the moment is less and it would like to sell around 10,000 units a
month whenever it enters the electric mobility space, company chairman RC
Bhargava said on Wednesday.
Addressing a
virtual conference on the company's second quarter earnings, he said 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.
Also with fuel prices going
up, car market leader Maruti Suzuki India is intensifying its focus on more CNG
offerings of its models.
"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.
He was responding to a
query on the rising demand for EVs in India and the company's views on the
segment, specially with competitors like Tata Motors receiving good response
for its EVs.
Elaborating, he asked,
"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 100,000 a year out
of 2 million?"
"I have to have a car
which is more saleable, there has to be greater demand for the product.
"All Maruti products
launched have had very significant demand," Bhargava asserted.
He, however, said the
company has not given up on plans to enter electric mobility in India but the
timeline would be decided by its parent Suzuki Motor Corporation.
Asked when could Maruti
Suzuki launch its EV, he said, "If I have to give you an outside date it
would be post 2025."
Stating that launching an
EV would depend on market conditions, Bhargava said at present it is difficult
to predict the pricing of electric vehicles, batteries, how the infrastructure
is built up and "the costing is not at all in our 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.
Asked if the government's
production linked incentives (PLI) for EVs would encourage Maruti Suzuki to
accelerate its EV plans, Bhargava said, "In any case our programme of
launching an electric vehicle is not going to change because of the PLI scheme.
"I think a launch date
or when you expect to launch the vehicle is something to be decided basically
by Suzuki in Japan."
To a query on the rising petrol prices and its impact on demand for CNG vehicles, he said out of over 2 lakh current pending orders, majority are for CNG models.
Maruti Suzuki India
managing director and CEO Kenichi Ayukawa said in order to meet the demand for
CNG vehicles, the company will increase production for such vehicles while it
is also working on plans to offer CNG options in more models in the next few
years.
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