Japan’s Suzuki goes green; set to invest $1.3 billion in India plant
The Japanese automaker giant Suzuki Motor is set to invest about 150 billion yen ($1.26 billion) to produce electric vehicles (EVs) and batteries in India, reports said on Saturday.
Reports first surfaced last year that Suzuki Motor will release its first all-electric vehicle by fiscal 2025 in India first.
Japan is set to offer India $42 billion in overall investments over five years during Kishida’s visit, the report noted. Suzuki will build a new electric vehicle production line in India.
Amid the reports doing rounds, the Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is on a two-day visit to India over the weekend to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the announcement is expected to be made will be made during the visit.
India is keen on achieving a goal of making 30 percent of newly-sold cars to be electric by 2030. To achieve that, the government has offered incentives to purchasers of EVs worth $1.3 billion over a three-year period, starting in 2019. The Indian government had in June last year decided to extend the incentive measures for two more years.
According to the reports, the first EV model will be made available for 1.5 million yen ($13,700) or less, after government subsidies are taken into account. Suzuki has a market share of about 50 percent in India. The company is also building a battery plant in India with Denso, a car parts maker.
Earlier, the Modi government had rejected Tesla’s offer to sell vehicles in India.
Last month, Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways, Nitin Gadkari, had said that manufacturing Tesla in China and selling in India is not acceptable.
When asked about Tesla’s demand to cut customs duties on electric cars, Gadkari said that the country cannot appease one automobile company.
“India is a huge market. We have all the world’s automobile giants — BMW, Volvo, Mercedes-Benz, Tototo, Honda, Hyundai — present here. If we give benefit to one company, we have to give that benefit to other companies as well. That is the practical problem,” he elaborated.
[With Inputs from IANS]
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