Varun SinghMaruti Suzuki will soon launch its most selling premium hatchback Baleno with a CNG variant. Which will be sold through the dealership of the company’s Nexa chain. Let us tell you that there is no CNG car under Maruti’s Nexa chain yet, so the CNG variant of Maruti Baleno will be the first Nexa’s first CNG car. At the same time, Maruti had stopped the production of diesel cars a few years ago. Since then, the company is emphasizing on the launch of CNG variants of cars. Because CNG cars are less expensive than petrol-diesel cars.
Shashank Srivast, Executive Director, Marketing and Sales, Maruti Suzuki, told our associate Financial Express that the company is looking to launch the CNG variant of the Baleno very soon. He said that the company did not envisage the sale of CNG vehicles from the Nexa showroom, but considering the demand of the customers, the company is going to change its policy. However, the Maruti Baleno CNG is yet to be finalized, he added. Also, Maruti is preparing to bring some other CNG variants through Nexa.
Along with this, Shashank Srivast said that, customers consider CNG as a good alternative to petrol and diesel. Because the cost of driving a vehicle on this comes about one third of that of petrol and diesel vehicles. Let us tell you that Maruti Suzuki sells its cars through two dealer chains Nexa and Arena. Apart from Baleno, Ignis, Ciaz, XL6 and S-Cross cars are sold through Nexa. CNG variant is not available in any of these vehicles as of now. But models like Alto, WagonR, Celerio, DZire and Atriga are available in CNG variants across the Arena dealer chain.
Maruti currently contributes 8 per cent of the total passenger vehicles in CNG variants, which is 15 per cent of the company’s total sales. Let us tell you that in the financial year 2020, Maruti sold a total of 106,000 units of CNG cars. Which increased by 54 percent to 163,000 units in FY 2021. The company has set a target of selling 240,000 units of CNG cars in the current financial year, which has reached 150,000 lakh units by December.
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Maruti Suzuki has been the first company to enter the CNG car segment. Currently, Hyundai Motor India sells four CNG models, Santro, Grand i10, Xcent and Aura. While Tata Motors sells models like Tiago ICNG, Tigor ICNG. In such a situation, Maruti is also now starting to offer the option of CNG cars in its luxury car segment.