Maruti Suzuki WagonR Electric Launch Delayed

It looks like Maruti Suzuki has shelved the plan to launch the WagonR Electric anytime soon. A batch of 50 Maruti Suzuki WagonR Electric cars was imported from Japan back in 2018 and are being heavily tested in parts of Delhi and Gurugram.

If you live in Delhi NCR, you might have spotted a white, sort of WagonR looking car roaming around the city with a red temporary number plate. In fact, that is the upcoming Maruti Suzuki WagonR Electric.

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Maruti Suzuki WagonR Electric Launch Deferred | Highlights

• Maruti Suzuki supremo, Mr RC Bhargava said on 24th October that they are delaying the plan for launching the WagonR Electric in India and that the car won’t be available for commercial public use in 2020.
• Adding further Mr Bhargava also quoted “EV is a work in progress for us. We have no intention of launching the Wagon R EV for commercial public use in 2020”
• Mr Bhargava cited reasons such as, lacking charging infrastructure, the high production cost of the car as well as the FAME2 (Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of (Hybrid &) Electric Vehicles in India) subsidy that is only available for shared fleet ownership.
• In an official comment, Mr Bhargava said “The car is ready but where is the infrastructure (charging)? We can think of launching the car in the market but it will not find takers unless there are feasible means of charging it”.
• Sadly The most costly part of an EV is the battery. Where is the battery manufacturing in India? The facility which is being set up with Toshiba in Gujarat is only for hybrid batteries and not for electric batteries”.
• Moreover, Hybrid cars in India don’t get any incentives from the Government and Maruti and Toyota has been lobbying in favour of Hybrids.
• This news comes as a major setback for Maruti Suzuki as other car makers such as Tata and Mahindra and Hyundai are leading the electric car scene in India.
• Hyundai launched the Kona EV back in August 2019 and Tata is preparing to launch the Nexon EV. Even newcomers like MG is planning to introduce the MG ZS EV in the coming days.
• Mahindra, which already has the eVerito and e2O on the roads plans to unveil 3 new electric cars in 2020 including the Mahindra e-KUV100 EV.