Maruti Suzuki India (MSIL) on Tuesday said it was looking at a significant increase in its overseas shipments by 2030, while maintaining that it will launch its first electric car eVX in January at the Bharat Mobility event.

The mid range electric SUV to be launched, would have a range of around 500-km per charge, and will be powered by a 60 kwH battery, Hisashi Takeuchi, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, said here on Tuesday.

Speaking at the 64th annual convention of SIAM, he said that the company will put in place a holistic ecosystem to address issues over range anxiety, charging infrastructure, resale value of battery-powered cars for its customers. MSIL will also export these EVs to Europe and Japan to increase customer confidence.

“On top of that, we will come up with a range of solutions for our EV customers to remove their concerns on owning an EV. We will use the strength of our network to give confidence to the customers for after-sale support. We will also use other technologies or powertrain options like Hydrogen, like strong hybrids, like biofuels, to minimise oil consumption and CO2 emission as in pure petrol vehicles,” Takeuchi said.

He also said that India is sitting on an enormous treasure of natural resources and has been gifted with huge human resources, agricultural resources, and animal resources. All of these produce some bio-waste. These can be converted into biofuels.

Biofuel prospect

“I think India can quickly become world’s number one in biofuels and the rest of the world can start learning from India. India is also naturally blessed with the Sun and the Wind. With these, India can produce a lot of renewable energy. Here I would like to make a special mention that given the size and the unique context of India, we need not copy solutions from the rest of the world,” Takeuchi added.

Meanwhile, Partho Banerjee, Senior Executive Officer, Marketing and Sales, MSIL said the biggest concern for EV users is regarding the range, infrastructure and residual value of the vehicle after five years.

Talking about other alternative fuel powered vehicles like CNG, Banerjee said that in the last five months, the company has seen over 30 per cent growth in sales of CNG vehicles.

“Every third vehicle now which is being sold happens to be a CNG vehicle, which used to be every fourth vehicle earlier. So, our contribution has gone up from 25 per cent last year of the all vehicles sold to 33 per cent now (CNG vehicles), he said.

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