Maruti continues to charter it’s own course.
- Recently it had communicated it’s intention to bet big on CNG cars.
- Previously it had also announced to be focused more on self charging hybrids instead of full EVs for phase 1 in the Indian market.
Now it has reconfirmed that it is not looking to make any entry back into the diesel cars. The Company last year had moved away from diesel due to reducing price differential between petrol and diesel running costs as well as increasing costs of compliance with the tighter emission norms.
Key points to note –
- Last year the Company had kept the window open that if it sees the potential in diesel cars again, they will get back into the segment. Now they have confirmed that they have no intention as they have been proven correct and market for diesel cars has reduced significantly. In 2013-14, diesel cars accounted for 60 per cent of the overall sales, now it has come down to less than 17 per cent.
- From 2023, the tighter emission norms will be implemented and that would increase the costs of compliance further making the proposition more unattractive.
- Maruti has instead confirmed that they will continue focusing on making petrol cars more fuel efficient, incorporating more and more hybrid technologies like start-stop and are accordingly working on developing new petrol engines. As per the company, it’s recently introduced all-new version of Celerio returns a fuel efficiency of 26.68 km/litre, which it claims is the highest for any petrol-powered car in India.