E-Vitara production to remain below 2,000 units per month until July: Maruti Suzuki

Maruti Suzuki India Ltd expects production capacity of the e-Vitara, the carmaker’s maiden electric vehicle (EV), to remain below 2,000 units per month for the domestic market until July.

Also read: Maruti Suzuki eVitara price starts at Rs 10.99 lakh without battery

“We have a production line with a capacity of 100,000 in Gujarat. We are producing the Fronx on the same line. We have got some allocations for our export partners. After GST 2.0, the response to Fronx has been tremendous. We are not able to cater to demand,” Partho Banerjee, Senior Executive Officer, Marketing and Sales at Maruti Suzuki, told reporters.

India’s biggest carmaker by volume manufactures the e-Vitara at the company’s Hansalpur plant in Gujarat.

“Every month, we are recalibrating the production numbers to keep waiting periods of all models at the same level. Till July, we do not expect to have production of more than 2,000 vehicles per month,” Banerjee said.

Maruti Suzuki opened its 200th Nexa Studio on Friday. The Nexa Studio is a smaller showroom with an average area of 1,200 square feet, compared to 4,000 sq ft in regular Nexa outlets. The carmaker has over 500 large-format Nexa outlets.

Maruti Suzuki said all its Nexa showrooms are equipped with EV chargers with a majority having both DC fast chargers and AC chargers.

Earlier this month, Maruti Suzuki announced the battery-as-a-service price for its maiden electric car, the e-Vitara, at Rs 10.99 lakh (ex-showroom). To be clear, the battery is not included in this price. India’s biggest carmaker is offering battery rental at Rs 3.99 per kilometre. The e-Vitara comes with two battery pack options: a 49-kWh pack for the base variant and a 61-kWh pack for the top trim.