New Delhi: Country’s largest carmaker Maruti Suzuki India Ltd (MSIL) yesterday said it would most likely launch an electric vehicle in India by 2020, but sought the intervention of the government for the commercial success of such a rollout.

Speaking at the year-end meeting, MSIL chairman RC Bhargava said government policy and intervention on incentivising the rollout of the electric vehicles would be important not only to keep the prices down but to make use of such vehicles by customers a commercial success.

Last month, Toyota and Suzuki had signed an MoU which will see both companies working together for introducing electric vehicles (EVs) in the Indian market by 2020.

Bhargava said though the MoU had been signed by the two Japanese automobile giants, the modalities of the manufacture of the EVs were still to be worked out. He said, “The Toyota-Suzuki JV is beneficial to Maruti, as it will allow the company to provide electric vehicles for the Indian market.

While Toyota and Suzuki have the technology for developing electric vehicles, Maruti doesn’t. This JV will help us bridge that gap and work towards a common goal of electrifying the Indian automobile industry”. However, he stressed the EVs for India would be manufactured by MSIL domestically and the company would also sell and service these vehicles.

MSIL’s target of rolling out the first EV by 2020 would be 10 years ahead of the target officially set by the government for introduction of electrically charged vehicles in India.

He said the success of the EVs would depend on meeting the customer aspirations and making it affordable. “Any electric vehicle to be sold should be affordable and meet customer use criteria,” he said.

Affordability would be an important factor for the EVs. “We have 75% of small cars and to make a small electric car affordable would be a challenge,” he said.

Maruti will conduct a market survey starting in January that will continue for six weeks before taking any product-related steps.

Bhargava also stressed the need for creating infrastructure for the success of the EVs.

Included on Toyota-Suzuki agenda will be engineering an ecosystem in which EVs can survive and Maruti intends to replicate that on the Indian soil.

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