Maruti Suzuki India said it will explore all technologies to cover its entire fleet under hybridisation, which comprises electrification and alternative fuel options.
Partho Banerjee, Senior Executive Officer, Marketing & Sales, Maruti Suzuki India told The Hindu that these technologies would include a wide range of pure electric and alternate fuel combos comprising battery electric vehicles, strong hybrids, strong biofuels like ethanol, or could also be compressed natural gas-based. The company would also explore another bio-fuel called CBG (compressed biogas) within CNG, he added.
“’The path that Maruti Suzuki is adopting, since we are a market leader, we have to cover the entire fleet. We will be working on all technologies with two major objectives in India. The first objective obviously is to reduce oil import and the second is to reduce total Co2 emissions,” he added.
According to Mr. Banerjee, hybrid is such a powerful technology that it improves energy efficiency and reduces Co2 consumption at least by about 30% with the help of a lithium-ion battery and a motor.
“’The other advantage of hybrid was that it offered high torque, fuel efficiency, and peppiness at the same time. And the biggest advantage is you don’t need charging. it’s like a self-charging machine. So we already have two products, the Grand Vitara and Invicto, and the market and people who have driven them swear by them.”
India’s highest fuel efficiency currently, offered by a hybrid, is 28 km per litre. “And we would like to increase this technology in India further,” he said.
On special allocations the company has been making in terms of people, funds and technology towards hybridisation and electrification, he said, “We can invest more in local manufacturing of parts. It is in Karnataka, at the Toyota plant, that both our strong hybrids are made. So if the volumes go up, it will enable us to localise the manufacturing of parts,” Mr. Banerjee stated. According to him, production of some 2.5 lakh cars per year is required for complete localisation.
“Once we get these numbers, it makes sense for localisation. Right now, we have just launched and it is only in two models, so the numbers will be smaller until more and more models became hybrids,” he said.
Last year, Invicto and Grand Vitara had contributed close to 10% to Maruti’s total sales of hybrid cars.
