Maruti Suzuki India Ltd on Tuesday 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. The company has yet to reveal the battery-inclusive prices.
India’s biggest carmaker is offering battery EMI at Rs 3.99 per kilometre, according to a press release uploaded on the stock exchange.
The e-Vitara will be sold from 700 Nexa touch points of Maruti Suzuki.
The e-Vitara comes with two battery pack options: a 49-kWh pack for the base variant and a 61-kWh pack for higher trims. The carmaker claims that the e-Vitara comes with an ARAI-certified range of 543 kilometres on a single charge for the top trim.
The carmaker has set up 2,000 EV charging points exclusively for its customers. “We have set up 1,500 EV-enabled workshops across 1100 cities,” said Partho Banerjee, Senior Executive Officer, Marketing and Sales at Maruti Suzuki.
Maruti Suzuki’s entry to the EV race comes at a time when the penetration of electric vehicles has gone down following the Goods and Services Tax (GST) reduction on internal-combustion engine (ICE) cars.
“After the introduction of GST 2.0, the penetration of EVs is going down. The EV industry is not keeping pace with the auto industry,” Banerjee said. “By 2030, the car industry will be around 5.5-6 million vehicles per annum. And the EV penetration forecast earlier was around 13-15%. But that was before GST 2.0. We need to reassess the market to arrive at the penetration levels in 2030.”
The penetration of electric vehicles will grow only when people consider it their primary car, Banerjee believes. “About 99% of customers who buy an EV use it as a secondary car. It’s not the primary car.”
The problem, according to Banerjee, lies in three key things. “In the past, customers have raised their concern that the range which is being promised is not delivered, and that creates a huge problem for them when they do inter-city rides,” he claims. “Range anxiety has created a huge amount of negativity in the minds of EV buyers.” Inadequacy of the public charging infrastructure and lack of residual value are the other concerns.
Maruti Suzuki aims to address the resale value barrier by offering its EV with a battery-as-a-service model. “In an EV, the battery cost is close to 40%,” he says.
“We are trying to instil confidence in customers before they go for an electric vehicle,” he says. “We are also going to have an assured buyback scheme.”
On localisation of the battery, Banerjee says, “Right now our battery is imported, but the plan for phased manufacturing localisation is very much on the cards.”
