Maruti Suzuki betting big on cleaner fuels, aims to sell 6 lakh CNG cars in FY25

Maruti Suzuki is betting big on cleaner fuel alternatives like CNG amid the tightening emission norms for petrol and diesel. The car manufacturer already holds the lion's share in the Indian passenger vehicle market's CNG segment with a range of vehicles that run on factory-fitted CNG kits paired with conventional petrol engines. With this strategy, Maruti Suzuki gets the opportunity to market these cars as comparatively environmentally friendly than the petrol-only and diesel-only models available in the market. Besides that, they also offer a better range per fuelling as well.

CNG-powered passenger vehicle sales in India crossed five lakh units for the first time in FY24. Maruti Suzuki claims to have sold more than 4.8 lakh units of CNG cars in FY24, which helped the automaker to earn a whopping 73 per cent market share in the segment, despite steep competition from rivals such as Hyundai and Tata Motors.

Maruti Suzuki's CNG car sales accounted for about 25 per cent of its total sales in the last fiscal that ended in March 2024. Now, buoyed by this rising demand for CNG vehicles, the automaker aims to ramp up this number to six lakh units in this financial year, revealed Maruti Suzuki Chairman RC Bhargava. “The CNG target for this year is six lakhs. We are going up from 4.8 to six lakhs," he added.

Speaking further on the OEM's strategy for hybrid passenger vehicles, Bhargava said that Maruti Suzuki wants to wait for a few months before it gets to know what the government is planning to do about the GST on hybrids. He said that it makes a huge difference whether the hybrid GST remains at 43 per cent or whether as Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways, Nitin Gadkari had mentioned, it comes down to 12 per cent. “It will make a big difference in the demand for the hybrids. It is very difficult for me to predict today what will happen to the hybrids in the second half of this year. We have to wait and see," Bhargava said.