Saar: As confirmed last month at the MOVE Summit, the carmaker has dispersed 50 EV prototypes nationwide for field testing.

We are all aware that the Japanese duo, Suzuki Motor Corporation (SMC) and Toyota Motor Corporation (TMC), have joined forces to co-develop electric vehicles (EVs) for India. It will be the latter who will help the former on the technical front and the former will manufacture the made-for- and made-in-India EVs. Well, in line with the commitment to launch an EV by the end of the current decade, Maruti Suzuki has commenced field-testing of EVs in India. The carmaker confirmed that this would happen during the MOVE Summit last month.

A total of 50 EV prototypes have been dispersed nationwide for field testing. It was C V Raman, the senior executive director of engineering at Maruti Suzuki India Ltd. (MSIL), who flagged off the EVs from the company’s Gurugram facility. The EV prototypes have been developed exclusively by Maruti Suzuki’s major stakeholder SMC. However, they were built at MSIL’s Gurugram facility.

The whole idea behind testing EVs in India is to collect data on how they perform in varied circumstances. Maruti Suzuki claims that the testing of EVs will be carried out at multiple terrains and extreme climatic conditions. Once the carmaker has enough data from this exercise, it will be in a good position to fine-tune the EVs based on what the Indian consumers want.

Maruti Suzuki is currently setting up an EV battery plant within its own campus in Hansalpur, Gujarat. The said facility will be built and run based on a collaborative agreement between SMC, TMC and Denso – a TMC subsidiary. The planned participation amongst the three has been set at a ratio of 50 per cent, 40 per cent and 10 per cent respectively. However, this isn’t the only space where SMC and TMC are collaboratively working on for the Indian market. The Indian arms of the duo will also share vehicle platforms to not just restyle, rebadge and sell those models in India but also in other developing markets.