e VITARA production to start in 'few months', all Suzuki EVs to be built in India - SMC President

The production of Maruti Suzuki’s first electric car, e VITARA, will start in the “coming few months” at Maruti Suzuki’s Gujarat plant, Toshihiro Suzuki, president of Suzuki Motor Corporation said at the Bharat Mobility Global Expo today.

He also said that all the EVs for all the markets of the Suzuki Motor Corporation will be made in India.

This is different from its current strategy, where a substantial portion of its production happens in its home base of Japan.

Suzuki said the company came to the decision to focus all its EV production in a single location after undertaking a detailed study.

“Based on our study, we aim to make BEVs attractive to customers through a three-step strategy,” he said, adding that it was decided to develop a dedicated platform of EVs, and that each market needed its own set of offerings.

The third point, he said, was that Suzuki should “leverage its global economies of scale and concentrate manufacturing at a single location, for the world.”

“For this purpose, we have chosen India as the global manufacturing base due to its quality products and scale merit,” he noted.

“From here, we will export to more than 100 countries of the world, including Europe and Japan. In India, we will utilize all our resources to build a BEV ecosystem to offer our customers an experience with total peace of mind. This will ensure that customers feel very comfortable and confident when making the BEV choice,” he added.