Maruti Suzuki, India’s largest carmaker, remains optimistic about selling 4 lakh CNG vehicles in the country in this fiscal year with the NEXA brand contributing a good percentage. In an exclusive conversation with car&bike, Shashank Srivastava, Senior Executive Director, Marketing and Sales, Maruti Suzuki India said the company has a year sales target of 4 lakh CNG cars with the new Maruti Suzuki Baleno CNG expected to contribute 13 to 14 per cent in its lifetime sales. Moreover, with the phasing out of diesel vehicles from the company’s portfolio, 20 per cent of its combined sales in FY2023 have come from CNG vehicles.
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Since 2010, Maruti Suzuki has sold 1.14 million CNG cars in the country, saving 1 billion tonnes of CO2 emissions. The company started its CNG journey with 3 cars almost a decade ago, with the number increasing triple-fold to 12 cars including the newly launched Maruti Suzuki XL6 CNG and Maruti Suzuki Baleno CNG. However, the growing demand for CNG vehicles has seen a steady rise in the past year, as the company also offers CNG on the Maruti Suzuki Alto, Maruti Suzuki S-Presso, Maruti Suzuki Celerio, Maruti Suzuki Wagon R, Maruti Suzuki Eeco and Maruti Suzuki Dzire, for private buyers, and the Dzire Tour M and Dzire Tour H3 for fleet customers with 17 per cent of its portfolio’s sales being contributed by CNG variants.
However, the growing demand for CNG cars has resulted in a backlog of about 1.23 lakh cars as the company looks to increase its production capacity for the vehicles powered by Compressed Natural Gas. Srivastava added, “Last year, we made 2.30 lakh CNG cars with the Maruti Suzuki Wagon R being the highest-selling model followed by Maruti Suzuki Ertiga and Maruti Suzuki Eeco. Last month, we sold 30,000 CNG cars, however, we are facing a serious backlog for which we increased CNG capacity, with the supply of components increasing.”
Also Read: Maruti Suzuki XL6 CNG Launched In India; Priced At Rs. 12.24 Lakh
The second highest-selling model for the company, Ertiga CNG, has a pending delivery of 72,000 units with a waiting period of 37 weeks while customers will have to wait a few weeks for the delivery of smaller cars. Overall Maruti is confident of FY2023 growth to edge closer to pre-pandemic levels.
Maruti Suzuki sold a total of 5,17,395 vehicles during the Q2 2022-23 period, the highest ever in any quarter. Sales in the domestic market stood at 4,54,200 units while exports were at 63,195 units. The company says the shortage of electronic components continues to impact production by about 35,000 vehicles in this quarter. The same period the previous year was marked by an acute shortage of electronic components and consequently, Maruti could sell a total of 3,79,541 units comprising 3,20,133 units in domestic and 59,408 units in export markets.
