Maruti to launch more diesel cars

Everybody is well aware of the soaring demand for diesel cars in the country. Therefore, India’s largest carmaker, Maruti Suzuki is now planning to bring in more diesel cars to preserve its market share in the Indian car bazaar, which is going through a bad time for several months now. As per the Chief Executive and MD of Maruti Suzuki India, Mr. Shinzo Nakanishi, company’s market share has been drifted down to about 40% in the year of 2011 and the major reason behind it was the slump in the auto industry along with dropping sales of petrol cars as compared to diesel variants of cars.

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The firm is now focusing on the production of more diesel cars. Maruti Suzuki India will now manufacture 3,00,000 diesel engines per year via Suzuki Powertrain, which is a joint collaboration between Suzuki Motors and Maruti’s Gurgaon Unit. Apparently, Maruti will purchase around 100,000 diesel engines per year as well for about three consecutive years from the very well-known Fiat India under the contract between Fiat and Suzuki Motor Corp. this will further help the company to produce extra diesel models.

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One more reason behind the production of more diesel cars is the shift in consumer preference to diesel cars due to sky rocketing petrol prices. This shift in preference has encouraged the carmakers to bring in new diesel version and enhance the production of the current diesel models. Big champions of the field, such as Ford have also made it official that it will invest more in diesel engines. Maruti Suzuki India is currently selling Maruti SX4, Maruti Swift, Maruti Swift DZire and Ritz models with 1.3 litre of diesel motors. In the interim, the company has seen a major turnaround in monthly sales especially after 7 continuous months of decline. In the month of January 2012, the firm saw 5.18% of hike in sales, whereas in December 2011, the sales went down by about 7.1%.

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Nakanishi said that this major hike in sales in the Indian auto market is delightful and will be followed by covering up the 10 to 11% of growth from the 17% of negative growth, which was witnessed in April to December 2011. As far as pricing of the car is concerned, Ford India could place Ford B-Max just below Ford EcoSport, which falls into the price range of Rs. 6 lakh to Rs. 8 lakh. Ford B-Max is likely to go on sale later this year in Europe and hopefully, Ford India is expected to bring this new MPV in the second half of 2013.