The country’s largest passenger vehicle maker Maruti Suzuki India (MSIL) said it is still considering CNG option for its Nexa channel where it sells premium vehicles including the Baleno, S-Cross, Ciaz, Ignis and XL6.

“We are open to CNG cars in Nexa as we have said in the past also...we are going step-by-step as we have just launched the CNG version of Celerio (sold through Arena) in January. We now have nine models in CNG from an overall 15 models line-up...so as we go along, we would like to do that. We have got the feedback from the customers too, it’s only a question of timing,” Shashank Srivastava, Senior Executive Director (Marketing & Sales), MSIL told BusinessLine.

MSIL launched the Nexa channel concept for selling its premium vehicles starting with Baleno in 2015, but none of the said vehicles have CNG option available till now, unlike most of the vehicles it sells through the Maruti Suzuki Arena outlets.

The company offers CNG option in cars including Alto, S-Presso, WagonR, Dzire Tour (for commercial use), Eeco and Ertiga.

Srivastava said the company in future plans to launch “more and more vehicles in CNG option because that is something we are having a great attraction for being not in diesel”.

However, he also cautioned customers of getting retrofitted of such vehicles with CNG because there are high risks involved in them.

“It (retrofitting) is not a good solution because the design material of the whole vehicle, right from the beginning has to be made for CNG. Whether it is the chassis, the braking system, weight distribution or driveability...all features we have to drive from the inception of making the vehicle (from design stage). You can’t have a petrol vehicle and then retrofit with CNG because those factors will not be taken into account,” he explained.

MSIL has been selling CNG vehicles for over a decade (since 2010) and in 2021 calendar year, the company sold around 2.09 lakh CNG cars. In January alone this year, the company has sold around 30,000 units. In the financial year 2020-21, the company sold 1.63 lakh CNG cars and in the current financial year, MSIL expects to sell between 2.35 lakh and 2.40 lakh CNG cars, Srivastava added.

The company is the highest CNG vehicle seller in the country and companies like Hyundai Motor India and Tata Motors are catching up to the trend. Tata Motors had recently launched Tiago iCNG and Tigor iCNG in its portfolio to catch up to the trend.

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