Maruti to roll out its first EV by 2025, says Takeuchi

Maruti Suzuki India will roll out its first electric vehicle (EV) by 2025, Hisashi Takeuchi, MD & CEO, Maruti Suzuki India, said, adding the company has been testing 50 electric Wagon R units in India. “Weather conditions here are tough for using EVs, so we have to make them perfectly safe,” Takeuchi said in an interaction with journalists.

The CEO noted that while the Indian EV market is growing, it is very small and the market share of EVs will only be 10% by 2030. “We have already announced and started our work for establishing our factory for EVs and localisation of batteries, Takeuchi said. Suzuki Motor Corporation announced last month it would invest `10,445 crore (150 billion yen) 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. “We are very strong in the small car and MPV segments. It is not necessary to have more than 50% share in every segment. But still, we need to have some level of market share in SUV segment also,” Takeuchi noted. The company had a market share of 51% in the PV segment in FY19 as well as in FY20.While the shortage of semiconductors has eased there will be no significant improvement in the next few months, according to the CEO. “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. “Our order backlog is increasing right now as semiconductor constraint has affected production. Clearing them is a big challenge for us right now,” Takeuchi said. He pointed out that 90% of the semiconductors are going to the electronics industry.

Maruti’s total output of passenger vehicles, including domestic models and export models, in FY22 was 15% higher than in the previous year, at 1.62 million . The company’s market share in the domestic PV segment dropped due to the semiconductor shortage even though demand was strong Takeuchi said. “Last year, the chips were not enough for the domestic models but were available for export models,” the CEO said. The company registered its highest-ever exports of 238,376 units in FY22. In comparison, the company had exported 96,139 units in FY21.