You Won’t See A Maruti EV In Showrooms Before 2025: R C Bhargava

While its Indian peers like Tata and Mahindra have charted detailed EV plans, Maruti Suzuki is still playing wait-and-watch

Maruti recently held a virtual press conference to reveal its Q3 financial results for 2021. During the event, the carmaker was asked to elaborate on its electric vehicle plans, to which the top brass clarified that it was in no rush to launch an EV in India.

R C Bhargava, Chairman of Maruti Suzuki, said, "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 (sic), and volumes in the 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." 

Maruti had revealed the Futuro-E Concept at the 2020 Auto Expo.

When asked to elaborate on when Maruti would consider launching its first EV in India, Bhargava said, “I don’t know. I’ll maybe give you an outside date. Maybe before 2025.” He further stated that the exact timing would be decided by Suzuki in Japan.

One of the reasons Maruti isn’t interested in EVs right now could be because electrics’ sales account for just a fraction of the total volumes in India. Another reason could be the uncontrolled prices of raw materials like batteries, inadequate charging infra, and the likes. R C Bhargava said that right now, “...costing was out of their hands.”

Maruti may be shying away from assuming a confirmatory tone on EVs, but behind-the-scenes happenings suggest something could be brewing. WagonR EV prototype sightings have often set the rumour mills running about a Maruti electric being close at hand. However, in reality, the carmaker was simply testing its electric powertrains to be able to swing into action when the time is right.