Toyota Kirloskar Motor has launched its 12th product offering for the Indian market, the Urban Cruiser Taisor, the re-badged Maruti Suzuki Fronx.
But the company does not seem in any rush to launch electric vehicles in the country and instead believes that even in the most optimistic scenario of 30% EV sales by 2030 will need multiple powertrains to co-exist.
Vikram Gulati, Country Head and Executive Vice President for Corporate Affairs and Governance, Toyota Kirloskar Motor stated that Indian consumers are now increasingly more aware on sustainability and are looking not just at tailpipe emissions but “well to wheel and that’s how sustainability should be looked at.”
“Whatever we have to do for sustainability, we have to do today and we have to do it at scale. Then only we can make an impact because every car sold today will remain on the roads for 15 years. The Indian market will need not one but multiple clean technologies to be able to address the societal issues we’re looking at, simply because of not only the consumer but the scale and the size and the speed at which we are growing,” he said.
It was just recently that Nitin Gadkari, Minister of Road Transport & Highways (MoRTH) made two key statements at different forums. Firstly, the government looking at bringing down taxes on hybrid vehicles, and secondly, he vowed to eliminate petrol & diesel vehicles in the country.
Gulati explained that given India’s annual new car sales of around 4.2 million, perhaps the country by 2030 will reach annual sales of 7 million new vehicles. Even in an optimistic scenario of 30 percent EV penetration, the vast majority will continue to be IC-engine vehicles. This would be in addition to the existing vehicle parc and new car sales happening till then each year.
“Irrespective of which technology you talk about, we believe any green technology, anything that has merit for India, anything that helps deliver our national goals should have favourable treatment with respect to gasoline and petrol,” stated Gulati.
The idea is not to encourage or push one technology over the other, but to create a level playing field and let consumers decide what technology they prefer and let consumers’ decisions drive economics.
