NEW DELHI: India’s largest carmaker Maruti Suzuki (MSIL) on Wednesday said that it sold 1,57, 954 lakh factory-fitted SCNG vehicles in the financial year ended March 2021 as against 1,06,444 units sold in 2019-20. This growth has been achieved even as the company had posted 6.7 per cent year-onyear fall in total sales at 1,457,861 units in FY21.
Since the Indo-Japanese carmaker had decided to stop selling diesel cars in India from April 2020, it has rapidly expanded its CNG portfolio. At present, it dominates this segment by offering as many as eight vehicles with factory-fitted CNG options. “We see CNG as a technology that has set a new benchmark in green fuel mobility. Maruti offers its customers the widest options of factory-fitted CNG-powered cars.
At the same time, CNG is becoming one of the most preferred alternative fuels due to its economic cost of running (as compared with the high prices of petrol and diesel) and improved CNG filling infrastructure,” said Shashank Srivastava, Executive Director (Marketing & Sales), MSIL. Separately, electric vehicle sales in India fell 20 per cent last fiscal due to a steep 37 per cent fall in sale of electric three-wheelers.
According to data provided by CEEW Centre for Energy Finance’s (CEEWCEF), EV registration stood at 134,619 units in FY21 as against 168,311 units in the previous year. While e-3W sales fell from 140,683 units in FY20 to 88,378 units in FY21, e-2W and electric cars saw growth on a low base. Two-wheeler EV sales saw a 1.6 fold increase in FY21 with 40,837 units sold.
Two-wheeler and three-wheeler EV sales accounted for 96 per cent of the e-mobility market in FY21. “Electric mobility is poised to be at the forefront of India’s green recovery. In the coming years, the central and state governments need to reduce uncertainty by rolling out detailed and clear long-term policies. Further, targeted efforts are needed to solve critical challenges such as higher upfront cost of EVs, lack of end-user financing, consumer’s range anxiety, and inaccessible charging,” said Arunabha Ghosh, chief executive, CEEW.
Stepping on the gas: Tata forays into CNG
Automobile major Tata Motors plans to foray into CNG fuelled passenger vehicle segment in FY22. Accordingly, a few of the company’s models will be offered with a factory-fitted CNG kit. At present, Tata Motors provides an option to get the CNG kits fitted in some of its PVs at dealerships.