Tyota Motor and Suzuki Motor are likely to discuss sharing the CNG technology for India as the Japanese automakers seek to enhance the production of automobiles running on greener fuels.
“With BS-VI coming in and small diesel vehicles going out of favour, Toyota may look at introducing CNG vehicles in India,” said a top industry official aware of the plans.
Suzuki already sells CNG vehicles in the country and it could be the basis of discussion between the partners in the future.
Toyota has CNG options available in vehicles in Japan but is interested in sourcing CNG-driven variants from Maruti Suzuki to reduce the cost of manufacturing.
“CNG engines, which are retro-fitted on to cars in the after market, cost substantially less than factory fitted CNG vehicles do. The idea is to source CNG variants of shared vehicles from Maruti to gain the economies of scale and lower the production cost,” said the officials.
Suzuki’s Indian subsidiary Maruti Suzuki has already announced plans to convert all small cars in its portfolio to run on CNG.
Maruti chairman R C Bhargava had earlier told sources: “There is an acceptance from government that CNG is a cleaner fuel, and it is being accepted for transportation. It’s setting up 10,000 CNG distribution outlets. Users are accepting (CNG vehicles).”
“Toyota and Suzuki, in addition to bringing together Toyota’s strength in electrification tech and Suzuki’s strength in tech for compact vehicles, aim to grow in the widespread popularisation of electrified vehicles to achieve sustainable mobile society in a manner that ensures fair and free competition,” said a spokesperson.