At the Japan Mobility Show, Suzuki Motor Corporation president Toshihiro Suzuki doubled down on India, unveiling a high-stakes plan to claw back market dominance. The potential rewards are immense, but so are the execution risks.
01 Dec 2025 | 6467 Views | By Ketan Thakkar, Hormazd Sorabjee & Kiran Murali
The curry, the jacket — and the importance India now exerts on Suzuki’s strategy
In a glass-walled conference room overlooking the Japan Mobility Show floor, Toshihiro Suzuki is doing something unusual for a Japanese auto boss. He’s talking as much about India’s GST and Indian vegetarian curry as he is ...
This is an Autocar Pro Plus article. Subscribe to continue reading.
The curry, the jacket — and the importance India now exerts on Suzuki’s strategy
In a glass-walled conference room overlooking the Japan Mobility Show floor, Toshihiro Suzuki is doing something unusual for a Japanese auto boss. He’s talking as much about India’s GST and Indian vegetarian curry as he is about EVs and engines.
At Suzuki’s Hamamatsu headquarters, he says, there are now more than 200 Indians on the rolls — some deputed from Maruti Suzuki, others hired directly. The company’s cafeteria even serves Indian curry regularly, a small but telling sign of how deeply India is embedded in Suzuki’s daily life.
He is dressed in a ‘bandi’, and for this media interaction he looked more Indian than the Indians in the room! The observation draws a quick smile, but his core message is dead serious: India is no longer just Suzuki’s biggest market. It is the fulcrum of the company’s future strategy.
GST, Policy Tailwinds and a ₹70,000-Crore Call
Suzuki begins not with a product pitch, but with policy. “We thank the Indian government for the GST policy. It not only has impacts for our car industry, but also for the automobile industry,” he says, calling it a “strong development of India” that will shape how carmakers invest and what kind of models they introduce in the coming decade.
There is an obvious follow-up: what about the oft-quoted ₹70,000-crore investment Suzuki has lined up for India? Is it R&D, EVs, or software?
Suzuki was clear that the ₹70,000-crore investment was earmarked for a fundamental capacity-building move. “Actually, the 70,000-crore investment is for the capital investment, not for the technology (alone),” he said, adding that it is “mainly for growing our production ability to the 4 million units.” The emphasis, he indicated, is on expanding manufacturing scale and the development associated with that growth—forming the base for Suzuki’s broader multi-pathway strategy in India.
That one line crystallises Suzuki’s India thesis. Before it becomes a software powerhouse or battery giant, the company wants to lock in scale: 4 million units of annual capacity in India and split as 3 million for the domestic market and 1 million for exports. This will make India Suzuki’s most prominent global manufacturing hub by a wide margin.
From Manesar to the World: India as an Export Springboard
Scale without exports is risky. Suzuki knows this, and it is re-wiring its global footprint through India. In FY2024–25, Maruti Suzuki exported a record 3.3 lakh vehicles and is targeting 4 lakh units this year. The destinations are no longer just Africa and the Middle East; India-built Suzukis are now the No. 1 imported cars in Japan and are increasingly headed to Europe as well.
That’s where the proposed India–EU free trade agreement comes in.
On the European opportunity, Suzuki is cautious but optimistic. “The free trade agreement… I believe it is positive news. And so, we would like to bring India as an export hub to Europe,” he says.
If the FTA goes through with reasonable tariffs and rules on emissions and safety, India could become Suzuki’s best-cost entry gate into the world’s most demanding car markets.
But there is a competitive shadow that hangs over this plan: China.
For Suzuki, the China question is less about rivalry and more about strategic selectivity. He sees China’s current export wave as a consequence of excess domestic capacity, forcing its carmakers into ultra-competitive global markets where profitability is elusive.
“In China, they are having competition without future growth,” he observes, pointing to sectors like solar panels where even dominant players struggle to make money. Rather than entering that crowded lane, Suzuki prefers steering clear of markets where Chinese brands are entrenched.
His approach is pragmatic: avoid getting pulled into high-volume, low-margin contests, and instead focus on regions where Suzuki’s cost discipline, compact-car expertise and brand trust allow it to grow on its own terms. In essence, the goal is not to out-China the Chinese — but to expand in spaces where Suzuki’s competitive logic still delivers sustainable returns.
Multi-Pathway, not EV Monogamy
Alongside scale and exports, Suzuki’s third pillar for India is its diversified energy strategy. At a time when global EV roadmaps are being reconsidered, Suzuki is leaning into a broader mix rather than an all-electric end game. In his wider briefing, Toshihiro Suzuki stressed that carbon-neutrality pathways differ across markets and that every Suzuki vehicle must contribute to those individual goals, in a context where a BEV-only portfolio is neither practical nor aligned with the realities of diverse geographies.
At the round table, he lays out the mix with greater clarity. “Yes, we will have flex-fuel vehicles, CNG–CBG vehicles, EVs, and hybrid vehicles. Flex-fuel hybrid is going to be part of our multi-pathway strategy,” he says. The company’s choices are shaped by the everyday economics of its customers and the uneven fuel and infrastructure landscape across India. Small cars are especially competitive, he notes, making the selection of technology a careful balancing act: the product must be right for Indian customers and closely aligned with their lives.
This approach is already reflected in the hardware Suzuki has been showing from flex-fuel concepts to CBG-compatible models showcased at the Japan Mobility Show, indicating that India will see a broader range of alternative-fuel technologies from the company in the coming years.
Biogas, Ethanol, and a Bold Line on oil Imports
Suzuki’s multi-fuel bet in India isn’t merely compliance with local policy; it’s tied to a bigger macro vision. “We want to make India a country that doesn’t need to import oil,” he says. “We want to increase the number of cars that use ethanol, biogas, CNG, and CBG. I want to make it possible for India to procure fuel.”
As part of that, Suzuki is partnering with Indian dairy cooperatives and agribusiness ecosystems to set up nine biogas/CBG plants by 2027, using agricultural and dairy waste as feedstock.
Technically, these projects give Suzuki an in-house, India-based supply of carbon-neutral gaseous fuel. Strategically, they serve three purposes:
It is a story that goes down well with policymakers in Delhi and with cost-conscious Indian buyers who have already embraced CNG in significant numbers.
Electrification for Small Cars
Even as he speaks of multi-fuel, Suzuki isn’t ignoring electrification. But the company’s EV roadmap is clearly more cautious than that of many rivals.
On small cars, historically Suzuki’s fortress, the question is how aggressively to electrify when buyers count every rupee. “Small cars are very competitive. So, we need to really consider which technology to put on the small cars,” he says. The idea, he adds, is to “introduce models that are just right for the Indian customers that are closely connected with their lives.”
The phrase “just right for the Indian customers” recurs often. It surfaces again when he is asked whether the Japanese domestic-market (JDM) EV showcased at the Japan Mobility can be transplanted into India.
“JDM cars don’t work in India,” he says bluntly. “We believe it is more reasonable to launch the gasoline car, internal combustion, or CNG products that are affordable and close to people’s lives.”
Taken together, these lines explain Suzuki’s reluctance to push expensive EV tech into the most price-sensitive end of the Indian market until costs fall further, and charging is more widespread. Instead, it will stretch ICE, CNG, ethanol blends, and hybrids as far as regulations allow.
Batteries and the China squeeze
If there is one area where the president sounds less confident, it’s batteries.
“The battery strategy is a very difficult issue,” he concedes, when asked if Suzuki will rely on imported cells or build more localised capacity. “But I really want to use Indian materials to produce… cells or batteries in India.”
That ambivalence mirrors what Autocar Professional had already reported: Maruti Suzuki’s first-born EV hit the road – six months after its actual launch plan, and the company is under pressure to firm up a long-term battery sourcing and localisation plan as China clamps down on exports of critical materials and cells.
Suzuki knows it can’t decarbonise at scale without a clear battery play. For now, it seems willing to lean on multi-fuel ICE and hybrid solutions as a bridge, while gradually tightening its EV strategy around India-made cells in partnership with Japanese and local suppliers.
Even as the EV and battery components move slowly, Suzuki is pouring engineering effort into squeezing more performance from the combustion engine – which are likely to last for way beyond 2050.
“We are working on improving fuel injection efficiency by 40%. We are also working on combining various technologies to make the engine more efficient,” he says. “We’re making many efforts regarding the combustion engine, we’ve developed an engine with 40% combustion efficiency, and also we’re looking to develop engines that use less oil, but engines that use carbon-neutral fuel.”
This is where Suzuki’s regional lens comes into play. India, he points out, is a “vast land”. In some regions, the grid is strong and electricity relatively abundant; in others, biomass and agricultural residues are more easily available; elsewhere, gas infrastructure is deeper than charging networks. “So, there are regions that are rich in electricity, or maybe there are regions that are rich in gas. So, we need to introduce products that meet each region,” he says.
In practice, this means:
It is a portfolio logic more than a product logic.
The Eight-SUV Blitz and the Fight for 50%
For all its talk of carbon neutrality and fuels, Suzuki knows its brand health in India will ultimately be measured in market share. Internally, the stretch ambition is clear: get back to 50% share of the passenger vehicle market, after slipping to around 40–41% by second half of 2025 as SUVs gained ground and small cars slowed.
The president doesn’t sugar-coat the scale of the task. “The 50% market share… it is a very tough concern. One of the toughest situations to have,” he admits.
The tactical answer is the now well-known “eight-SUV blitz”. Suzuki plans to roll out eight new models — many of them SUVs and crossover derivatives — over the next five to six years, bringing the total line-up to 28. “We are targeting to grow the market share in India by launching 8 SCB models in the next 5 to 6 years, which will bring the total number of models to 28,” Suzuki confirms.
Autocar Professional has reported that this pipeline will include sub-compact SUVs (codenamed Y43 and YK9), more variants in the Grand Vitara/Brezza/Fronx family and electric SUVs aimed at both Indian and export markets. It is, in effect, Suzuki’s attempt to complete a portfolio pivot from “India’s small-car company” to “India’s most accessible multi-fuel SUV and EV maker.”
The Execution Question
Put together, Suzuki’s India playbook looks coherent on paper:
The big Question now is Execution.
Battery strategy remains, in Suzuki’s own words, “a very difficult issue”. The SUV race is more crowded and more premium than the hatchback wars the company has historically dominated. And while multi-fuel gives it flexibility, regulations around CAFE, emissions and safety will steadily tighten, forcing more rapid electrification than its conservative stance might suggest.
For now, though, there is no ambiguity in Hamamatsu about where Suzuki’s next decade will be decided. Not in Tokyo. Not in Shanghai. But in India.
The curry on the cafeteria counter, the jacket on Toshihiro Suzuki’s shoulders, the ₹70,000-crore capex, the nine biogas plants, the eight-SUV blitz, the 4-million capacity blueprint — they all point to the same conclusion:
Suzuki’s global trajectory increasingly hinges on what it achieves in India. The challenge lies in whether it can move with the urgency its ambitions demand, even as Indian OEMs stretch their lead in mid-size SUVs and Korean manufacturers intensify their push in this market.