Maruti Suzuki said bookings for its electric and compressed natural gas (CNG) vehicles have surged in recent weeks as rising fuel prices push consumers to seek lower running-cost alternatives, even as the country's largest carmaker grapples with capacity constraints to meet demand.
Partho Banerjee, senior executive officer for Marketing & Sales at Maruti Suzuki India, said bookings for the company's first electric vehicle, the e Vitara, have nearly doubled last month. The automaker is now in the top five electric passenger vehicle maker rankings in terms of volumes this year.
"We are seeing a very good traction in the electric vehicle. The booking has almost doubled," Banerjee told reporters after the company's May sales announcement.
The company has received more than 4,000 bookings for the e Vitara in the past month, but supply remains constrained as production is currently limited to around 2,000 units a month. Maruti Suzuki expects capacity to increase from August or September.
The automaker also reported strong demand for its CNG-powered models following a sharp increase in petrol and diesel prices.
"There has been increase of approximately Rs.8 in the fuel prices over a span of 11 days," Banerjee said, adding that CNG bookings have risen by about 40% since mid-May. "The CNG vehicles booking, if earlier it was coming at a rate of X, after that announcement it has become 1.4X.”
The surge in demand has come despite an increase in CNG prices. Banerjee said consumers continue to favour the fuel because operating costs remain significantly lower than those of conventional petrol and diesel vehicles.
"The TCO of CNG vehicle is much, much better than the fossil fuels," he said.
Maruti Suzuki recorded its highest-ever monthly CNG sales in May and is working with suppliers to increase the production of factory-fitted CNG kits.
The company said buyers are increasingly shifting towards alternative fuel vehicles as they weigh ownership costs more carefully. Banerjee said many customers who would earlier have considered diesel vehicles are now opting for CNG models.
The trend is particularly visible in entry-level cars. In the WagonR hatchback, CNG variants now account for nearly half of total sales, according to the company.
The rise in demand for both electric and CNG vehicles comes as higher fuel prices, improving charging infrastructure and a wider range of alternative-fuel models encourage Indian consumers to move away from conventional internal combustion engine vehicles.