The vice president of sales and marketing at Toyota said that a key component of their alternative fuel strategy for India is localization. Toyota is currently in partnership with Suzuki to benefit from Suzuki’s capabilities of achieving scale in India Maruti Suzuki has deep roots in India and is the largest car manufacturing company in the country. We have already seen Toyota and Suzuki partnerships in the Glanza-Baleno and HyRyder-Grand Vitara. Because of this partnership, we can say that Maruti Suzuki’s alternative fuel technologies have a high likelihood of making their way into Toyota vehicles.
We think Toyota will skip the BZ4X, given their desire to introduce localized vehicles to India’s mass market segments. Toyota engineers combined with Maruti Suzuki’s engineers are also working on the idea of the eVX concept. The eVX will be Maruti Suzuki’s first EV in India. Toyota and Maruti Suzuki are exploring new fuel options in India. Regular fuel engines like petrol, mild hybrid petrol, turbo diesel, and CNG are currently put on the side and the main focus of both companies is on alternate fuels like – Bio CNG, Hydrogen CNG, Strong hybrid petrol, Electric Vehicles, Flex fuel, Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, and Hydrogen combustion engines.
Stepping into every possible sector to net-zero carbon emission is a good approach and it could also be beneficial for the company. Currently, almost every automobile company is trying to establish its footprint in the EV space. While Toyota and Suzuki are making a cautious bet by diversifying their powertrain options. In order to continue the switch to cleaner fuels campaign, companies should invest in whichever alternative fuels start to look promising in the long run. Because, what if in the next 15 to 20 years, EVs didn’t become the standard option?
