Maruti expects shift in demand for petrol cars

Country's largest passenger car maker Maruti Suzuki is expecting a shift towards petrol vehicles with the recent deregulation of diesel by the government.
"We expect that the passenger preference will shift towards purchase of petrol cars as the diesel prices got de-regulated and price gap between the two are narrowing down", Vice-President and commercial business head of Maruti S N Burman said.
He said that presently the proportion of diesel and petrol cars for Maruti was at 30 per cent and 70 per cent respectively.
"For Maruti, petrol cars sell most because its two best selling models, Alto and WagonR, were in this version", he told reporters at the launch of new Alto K10.

The industry trend was 45 per cent for diesel and 55 per cent for petrol.
Maruti had the flexibility to ramp up production of petrol cars when the demand picked up to higher levels, he said.
About new segment entries, he said that Maruti did not have presence in the sports utility vehicle (SUV) segment.
"The company is planning to introduce a SUV in the next year", he said.