Maruti Suzuki Celerio and how it achieves India's best petrol mileage

The updated 2021 Maruti Suzuki Celerio was launched in the Indian car market amid much fanfare earlier this month and while the Celerio now gets a host of changes - from its exterior styling to cabin layout, it is its ARAI-certified mileage of 26.68 kmpl that made the biggest headlines. At a time when petrol prices remain at record levels in many parts of the country, this single factor may be enough to propel sales of the new Celerio.

Maruti is leaving no stone unturned to underline the fuel efficiency credentials of the latest Celerio that is now powered by the next-gen K10 engine and continues to offer a manual as well as AGS transmission choices. CV Raman, CTO at Maruti Suzuki India Limited, in an interview to HT Auto, explained how a combination of factors helps the car extract a longer distance per litre of fuel. “There is the new K10 engine which has been improved to deliver this fuel efficiency. We have tried to reduce the frictional losses, we have tried to improve the combustion efficiency and the volumetric efficiency, reduced the other losses which are there," he said. “In order to do all this, various equipment have been put into this like dual-injector, VVT and integrated exhaust manifold, cooled EGR. The valve-train has been changed. So it entirely a new engine that has been put into the vehicle."

Raman also points to several other factors like a more aerodynamic profile, improved tyres for reduced rolling resistance and others which help the Celerio extract more miles per litre of fuel.

Here are extracts from the interview with Raman:

HT Auto: Maruti inherently does a really good job of having cars that are fuel efficient. But when the new Celerio was being developed – how important was the mileage aspect?

Raman: From the outgoing Celerio, the feedback was about design, space and if customers can get better fuel efficiency. The majority customer is basically tech-savvy – the large chunk of Celerio customers reside in Pune, Bengaluru , Hyderabad – such IT centres – who always look for better fuel efficiency.

As a philosophy, Maruti always looks at how to improve design, improve packaging and layout, improve comfort and convenience inside cabin, and improving performance in terms of fuel efficiency and ride, and also provide comfort and convenience features such as AGS technology. Our effort is always to look at all these parameters for each of our products – in a way.

So fuel efficiency as it is a performance requirement, and today’s fuel prices have also sky-rocketed and so, customers definitely will look at such value proposition.

HT Auto: Can we expect some of the learning from developing new Celerio to be carried to other cars in Maruti stable like the WagonR or Swift?

Raman: As far as the engine is concerned, we have already looked at this in a way. If you look at the new Swift and DZire, the new engine has already been put into these vehicles. After Celerio, the second most fuel efficient petrol vehicle is DZire at 24.01kmpl. What has been the common aspect is the same architecture of the engine with dual-injector, cooled EGR and dual-VVT. Such technologies have already been incorporated into these vehicles and this is a continuous effort and once we develop such technologies, it will go on to other vehicles too.

HT Auto: You have the Celerio and the WagonR – two power players – so is there a sense of cannibalization or threat? WagnoR also offers fantastic mileage. How are you setting this car apart from WagonR or does it not matter as it is all in the family?

I won’t say that it won’t matter. WagonR stands for a particular image and as a tall boy it has a very strong following and people who buy a WagonR upgrade to another WagonR. It is a strong brand and that kind of body shape represents something to the customers and those customers are very loyal and we thank them for that.

Celerio is also in the same kind of category of vehicles but it is a more stylish kind of vehicle, representing a different kind of offering for a new age customer who like to have a different design in the one-litre space. Therefore, this is a very good opportunity for them and both the vehicles are going to co-exist.