Maruti Suzuki is in no hurry to jump on the electric vehicle bandwagon just yet. Chairman RC Bhargava on Wednesday said.
The Company has been testing the electric Wagon R for some time now, Bhargava said Maruti will launch electric vehicles in the country only after 2025 as demand for such vehicles at the moment is less.
He also mentioned that they are not looking to enter the Indian EV space by retailing a few thousand units only, but would like to sell around 10,000 units a month whenever it enters the electric mobility space.
Addressing a virtual conference on Q3 financial results, he further stated that to counter the rising fuel prices, Maruti Suzuki India is intensifying its focus on more CNG offerings of its models rather than battery hybrid or battery electric vehicles.
“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, and volumes in 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,” Bhargava said.
He added that currently a lot of ancillaries in the EV ecosystem such as batteries, charging infrastructure, and electric supply are done by other parties so costing is not in the hands of the company.
“It all depends on factors market conditions like how the infrastructure is built up, pricing of electric batteries etc. Costing is not in our hands. Batteries are scarce because there is a global demand for batteries.”
Asked if the government’s production linked incentives (PLI) for EVs would encourage Maruti Suzuki to accelerate its EV plans, Bhargava said,”In any case our programme of launching an electric vehicle is not going to change because of the PLI scheme. I think a launch date or when you expect to launch the vehicle is something to be decided basically by Suzuki in Japan.”
Maruti Suzuki India Managing Director and CEO Kenichi Ayukawa said in order to meet the demand for CNG vehicles, the company will increase production for such vehicles while it is also working on plans to offer CNG options in more models in the next few years.
Maruti Suzuki reports lower-than-expected net profit of Rs 441 crore in Q1uki Net Profit:
Maruti Suzuki India reported a decline of over 65 per cent in its Q2FY22 net profit on a year-on-year basis. Net profit fell to Rs 475.3 crore during the quarter under review from Rs 1,371.6 crore in Q2FY21.
However, the company’s net sales for the quarter under review rose to Rs 19, 297.8 crore from Rs 17,689.3 crore earned in Q2FY21. “The company sold a total of 379,541 units during the quarter constrained by a global shortage in the supply of electronic components,” the auto major said in a statement. “Sales in the domestic market stood at 320,133 units. Exports were at 59,408 units, the highest ever in any quarter.”
Maruti Suzuki sold a total of 353,614 units during the quarter under study. Sales in the domestic market stood at 308,095 units while exports were at 45,519 units.
In comparison, during the same period previous year, the company had sold a total of 76,599 units including sales of 67,027 units in domestic market and exports of 9,572 units.