Maruti Suzuki has planned to introduce its first electric offering, the eVX, in the Indian market sometime next year.
The ground-up electric SUV will be built at the carmaker’s Gujarat plant, and it will also be exported to several markets.
The eVX is being jointly developed with Toyota, which will also have its own version that will go on sale in 2025. The eVX will include a large quantity of localised content, including batteries, in order to attain an aggressive price point.
Rahul Bharti, executive director of Corporate Affairs at Maruti Suzuki, said, “It is not enough to simply launch a model with imported batteries and motors.” When we launch an EV, we intend to manufacture it locally. So our EV will have a localized battery and motor, and we will also export the model from India to build scale.”
However, it remains to be seen how aggressive Maruti Suzuki will be while pricing its born-EV SUV against rival Tata Nexon EV, which is based on a modified combustion engine platform. Apart from the Nexon EV and the MG ZS EV, the eVX will also see stiff competition from the upcoming Creta EV that is expected to go on sale around the same time frame.
At its Gujarat facility, Maruti Suzuki is manufacturing batteries for hybrid vehicles and is expected to build batteries for EVs too. Exports to other countries are already underway and are expected to reach Rs 1,000 crore by next year.