The Indian automobile sector will see some concerted action in the electric mobility area in the coming years. The latest announcement has come from Toyota Motor Corporation that it will soon launch an electric vehicle jointly with Suzuki Motor Corporation.
It will be a passenger car in the compact segment and will most probably be built on the existing model, Wagon R. Interestingly, this announcement has come from a senior executive of Toyota on the sidelines of the Tokyo Motor Show set to open tomorrow. Shigeki Terashi who is the executive vice-president of Toyota Motor Corp and is on the board of directors of the company too, has spoken in detail about these plans.
It may be recalled that the two Japanese car companies, Toyota and Suzuki, had entered into a collaboration in its Indian operations where they would jointly develop small battery electric and hybrid vehicles. This was in 2017. From then on, they have made this agreement more broad-based with joint efforts at exporting their cars and so on.
Shigeki Terashi did not elaborate on the full plans on this electric vehicle project except to state that they would want to leverage on Suzuki’s prominent presence in the market and try to stay ahead of the competition. He has left enough hints that the hatchback model Wagon R is the platform the joint effort would be focusing on for the electric car. Wagon R is one of Maruti Suzuki’s most successful cars in the Indian market.
Now it is not very clear whether it will be a hybrid vehicle or a pureplay electric car. Toyota is said to be ready to transfer its hybrid powertrain technology to Suzuki. There is also the parallel activity in setting up a lithium-ion battery unit in Gujarat in which apart from Toyota and Suzuki, another Japanese giant Toshiba are joining hands in making the investments.