Maruti Suzuki to export Baleno to Suzuki Japan in early 2016

Maruti Suzuki India is all set to flag off a new precedent – of exporting to its parent company Suzuki Motor Corp in Japan. The first model will be the premium Baleno hatchback that had its global launch in New Delhi on October 26.

The second model to be marketed from the company’s premium Nexa showrooms, after the S-Cross that was launched this July and has sold 12,000 units so far, the Baleno comes in petrol and diesel options with the base VVT petrol Sigma model kicking off at an introductory price of Rs 499,000 with the  CVT petrol variant costing Rs 676,000. The DDiS 190 diesel Sigma is priced at Rs 616,000 with the top- end Alpha version priced at Rs 811,000 (all ex-showroom Delhi).

Safety features like dual airbags, ABS with EBD and seatbelt pretensioners that prevent car crash impact come as standard across all variants. The Baleno will also be the first car to offer the Apple CarPlay in India. This helps iPhone users to get directions, make calls, send and receive messages, listen to music and audio books through this user interface. It lets the driver control all the multimedia functions via voice commands.

While the DDiS 190 diesel engine (1.3L) delivers a fuel efficiency of 27.39kpl, the VVT petrol 1.2L gives a mileage of 21.4kpl. The CVT variant is available only in petrol and is currently imported. The Baleno will be pitched against the Honda Jazz and the Hyundai Elite i20.

Kenichi Ayukawa, managing director and CEO, said at the launch that the ongoing festive season is the right time to launch the Baleno hatchback and it would help the company to achieve the 2 million annual sales mark by 2020. In September, Suzuki had announced plans to rollout 15 new models over the next 5 years in India to push it closer towards fulfilling this sales target.  The company and its suppliers have invested over Rs 1,060 crore on developing this new model.

“The Baleno is not only for India but for the global markets and will be exported to 100 countries from India. This model will be exported to Japan from India opening a new chapter in the long history of Maruti Suzuki. The Baleno will be the first ‘Make in India and sell’ global model for Maruti Suzuki. The Indian government has been always supporting to bring up India as a production hub for small cars. Now it’s our turn to meet the Make in India expectations of the government. The Baleno is our first answer,” he said. 

Initial volumes of 5,000-6,000 units are on the radar as exports to Japan and Europe monthly. These will be scaled up to 55,000 annually for the global markets by the next year. In Europe, Denmark, UK, Germany, Portugal, more or less the whole of Europe barring East Europe, will be encompassed, moving onwards to Latin America – Chile, Mexico, Uruguay – and then South Asian countries.

The premium Baleno that evolves from a completely new platform and is built on Suzuki’s total effective control technology has been developed over a four-year period by the engineering and design team of Suzuki and Maruti Suzuki. The inputs related to customer’s requirements in terms of quality and performance were contributed by Maruti Suzuki with the development work undertaken globally in Japan.  “But we did a lot of localisation, along with local development of suppliers and productionising of the model in India. While the 5-speed manual transmission variant has 99 percent localisation, the CVT trim has 84 percent local content with the CVT imported from Thailand or Japan,” says CV Raman, executive director (engineering).

The significance of exporting the first car model, the Baleno from India to Suzuki Japan cannot be overstated. Till date, Maruti Suzuki had received all its technology and cars from Japan and now for the first time the subsidiary is exporting back to the parent. For instance, till now, Japan and Europe were each manufacturing their own Swift hatchbacks and not importing from India where it also made, while global development is undertaken at four places – Hungary, India, China and Japan.

But with the Baleno hatchback, Maruti Suzuki has broken this myth as the premium hatch will be made only in India for the global markets.  In the late 1990s, the carmaker was marketing the Baleno sedan that was unable to rustle up adequate numbers and had to be discontinued.

“That was a different vehicle and will not have any effect on this Baleno even though they share the same name. The new product and performance will speak for itself,” assures Raman.

Special development has gone into the Baleno hatch in terms of bringing high tensile steel makers, material as well as dies to India. Productionising them was a bigger challenge for the carmaker’s suppliers. Other challenges were faced in terms of accessing new technology related to infotainment systems and making it an export product as well as accessing autonomous braking and speedometer technology. All these technologies were brought to India by Maruti Suzuki and in sync with their suppliers, they had to train them on the correct quality levels and performance requirements that were required in the Baleno globally.

Now with the customised platform different applications, engine options and specs for the EU or Japanese market can be engineered and developed according to each region’s specific requirements using commonised parts. All this has been factored into the platform at the development stage.

The new Baleno uses a great deal of high tensile steel and Maruti Suzuki has changed the ratio of its usage in this model doubling it to 42 percent with 20 percent contributed by galvanised steel. Upcoming models will find higher usage of high tensile steel as it ensures light weight but strength and rigidity to the body structure to withstand crashes especially as regulations become more stringent.

RS Kalsi, executive director (sales and marketing), visualises double-digit growth in sales in the current fiscal with the new models in the product portfolio. He confirms two new models from the Maruti stable during Q4 of FY’16 –the much-awaited Carry LCV that will herald the carmakers entry into the LCV segment and the other a compact SUV.

Many of the new models will be exhibited at the company’s premium Nexa outlets that are currently at 80 and will reach 100 by end of 2015. Exports as a thumb rule constitute about 10-12 percent of the total sales of the carmaker. 

Also read: Suzuki Motor Corp banking on Maruti and India for bigger scale