New Delhi: Indi’s top carmaker, Maruti Suzuki, is in no hurry to join the electric vehicle (EV) race in the Indian market. At a time when the government is also pushing for EVs, the company says it will enter the space only after 2025 as demand for such vehicles at the moment is less.
Addressing a virtual conference on the company’s second-quarter earnings, company Chairman RC Bhargava said under the current circumstances a lot of things in the EV ecosystem are done by other parties and therefore the costing is not in the hands of the company.
“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, PTI reported.
Asked when could Maruti Suzuki launch its EV, he said,”If I have to give you an outside date it would post 2025.”
Maruti Suzuki reported a standalone net profit of ₹475 crore for the September quarter, down 65% from ₹1,371 crore in the year-ago period. The profit was impacted by adverse commodity prices and lower sales volume due to electronic component shortages, leading to lower capacity utilization.
Electric vehicles (EVs) currently make up a fraction of total sales in India mainly due to their high price as the batteries are imported. But growth is picking up as the government offers incentives to automakers as well as EV buyers.
The shift to electric mobility is part of the Indian government’s push to reduce costly oil imports and curb rampant pollution in its major cities. As per the FAME India Scheme II, the sales penetration target for EV is set as 40% of buses, 30% of private cars, 70% of commercial cars and 80% of two- and three-wheelers by 2030.
-With agency inputs
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