Suzuki Motor Corporation (SMC) on Sunday said it has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU ) with the State of Gujarat, to invest around 150 billion yen (around ₹10,430 crore) for local manufacturing of electric vehicles (BEV) and BEV batteries.
The investment includes ₹3,100 crore on increasing production capacity for BEV by Suzuki Motor Gujarat (SMG) by 2025 and ₹7,300 crore on construction of plant for BEV batteries (at land neighbouring to SMG) manufacturing by 2026. It also includes ₹45 crore investment for construction of vehicle recycling plant by Maruti Suzuki Toyotsu India by 2025, Maruti Suzuki India (MSIL) said in a filing to BSE on Sunday.
The MoU was signed on Saturday at the India-Japan Economic Forum held here, in the presence of Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Toshihiro Suzuki, Representative Director and President, SMC and Kenichi Ayukawa, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, MSIL were joined by senior government personnel of India and Japan at the ceremony.
“Suzuki’s future mission is to achieve carbon neutrality with small cars. We will continue active investment in India to realise self-reliant India (Atma-nirbhar Bharat),” Toshihiro Suzuki said.
The investment announcement was part of the 14th Annual India-Japan Summit on Saturday where Japan announced its plans to invest ₹3.2-lakh crore over the next five years, which follows the investment promotion partnership of 2014.
Apart from partnerships in other fields, both the countries also welcomed the launch of the India-Japan Clean Energy Partnership (CEP) for cooperation towards achieving sustainable economic growth, addressing climate change and ensuring energy security, in areas such as electric vehicles (EV), storage systems including batteries, EV charging infrastructure (EVCI), solar energy, clean including green hydrogen/ ammonia, wind energy, exchange of views on respective energy transition plans, energy efficiency, CCUS (Carbon dioxide Capturing, Utilisation and Storage) and carbon recycling.
In October 2019, Automotive Electronics Power Private (AEPPL) - a joint venture between Japan’s Toshiba Corporation, Denso Corporation and SMC had signed an MoU with Gujarat government to invest ₹4,930 crore in two phases to up a lithium-ion battery plant at Hansalpur in Ahmedabad district.
It was part of the Suzuki group’s plans to foray into the EV space, particularly in India. RC Bhargava, Chairman, MSIL also has maintained that the company would launch its EV by 2025. “Till then, the company will focus on petrol and CNG vehicles,” he said.