PM to lay foundation stone for Suzuki’s EV battery plant, Kharkhoda facility in Haryana

Suzuki Motor Corporation will lay the foundation stone for two key projects in Gujarat tomorrow, its electric vehicle (EV) battery manufacturing facility at Hansalpur and a vehicle manufacturing facility in Kharkhoda, Haryana.

Prime Minister Modi will do the honours by laying the foundation stone for the Gujarat facility at Gandhinagar, Gujarat.

Earlier in May this year, PM Modi met Suzuki Motor Corporation's Senior Advisor Osamu Suzuki in Japan as part of his outreach to discuss opportunities in investment, innovation, manufacturing of electric vehicles, and recycling centres in India. "In a meeting with Advisor @suzukicojp Osamu Suzuki, PM @narendramodi appreciated Suzuki's transformational role in India's automotive industry," MEA spokesperson Arindam Bagchi had tweeted.

Suzuki Motor Gujarat’s EV battery facility at Hansalpur, Gujarat will be set up with an investment of around Rs. 7,300 crores to manufacture Advance Chemistry Cell batteries, said a statement issued by the Prime Minister's Office. 

The vehicle manufacturing facility in Kharkhoda will have the potential to manufacture 1 million passenger vehicles per year, making it one of the largest passenger vehicle manufacturing facilities at a single site in the world. The first phase will involve an investment of over Rs 11,000 crore.

Suzuki Motor Corporation had earlier in March announced that it would invest around 150 billion yen (about Rs 10,445 crore) by 2026, for local manufacturing of Battery Electric Vehicles (BEV) and batteries in Gujarat. Also, SMG will invest Rs 3,100 crore to increase production capacity for BEV manufacturing by 2025.

Amongst the other projects are Maruti Suzuki Toyotsu India’s (MSTI)  Rs 45 crore investment in the construction of a vehicle recycling plant by 2025 and MSTI -- the joint venture between the Maruti Suzuki and Toyota Tsusho Group – which has commenced operations for a vehicle dismantling and recycling unit at Noida in Uttar Pradesh. The facility, spread over 10,993 square meters, can recycle over 24,000 ELVs (end-of-life vehicles) annually. In November 2019, the two partners announced a joint venture for setting up the vehicle scrapping and recycling unit.

SMC had first set up its manufacturing plant in Gujarat in 2011 and Modi who was then Gujarat Chief Minister had given the nod for the plant, pepping it up with a slew of incentives. As of now, Maruti’s Gujarat facilities have the capacity to make 750,000 cars annually.

The inauguration of Suzuki's new facilities is seen as a landmark move, as it cements Indo-Japanese ties further with Suzuki seen completing its share of commitment to increasing its investment exposure to the country. These investments will also help strengthen the state’s credentials as an EV destination with the spotlight earlier on states such as Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.

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