Freewheeling
Maruti Suzuki are back at the forefront of innovation in India
CALLING IT A BLOCKBUSTER ISN’T ENOUGH. With the first anniversary of its launch this month, the Maruti Suzuki Vitara Brezza has already notched up over 2 lakh bookings. Whew! It has been immensely popular, has garnered enough awards to fill its reasonably ample boot, and has brought a freshness and fervour to the Maruti Suzuki brand. But these are all things you possibly already knew. Now let me tell you what you may not know. The Vitara Brezza has been the first product completely designed and developed in India and not in Japan – like all other Maruti Suzuki models before it. And this is primarily thanks to the spanking new facility the company has opened in Rohtak, Haryana. Set up on a sprawling 600-acre campus, Maruti’s new R&D centre has modern, state-of-the-art vehicle testing and evaluation laboratories, an international standard vehicle proving ground (that includes 31 test tracks that add up to over 30 kilometres of varying surfaces), and one of the country’s first proper crash test facilities.
The new facility allows Maruti Suzuki to catapult into the league of manufacturers with substantial scale not only on the production and sales side, but also development. The `3800 crore investment is promising on two fronts. The first is the scope it provides Maruti Suzuki to build and develop models independently – and not just for India but world markets too. And the second is the new benchmarks in safety, emissions, build quality and innovating it ushers in for the Indo-Japanese giant. It is the latter that interests me immensely. For years I have lamented and even been vocally critical of Maruti for not truly taking on the onus of being market leader. It should have been Maruti Suzuki leading the way for others to follow, but very often the innovating (example: the sub 4-metre sedan – Tata Indigo CS) and safety benchmarking (example: rear seatbelts on the Hyundai Santro) was done by others and saw Maruti being the follower rather than the leader.
But a new era dawned a few years ago when Maruti took a huge leap and developed its AGS or Auto Gear Shift (AMT). That was a signal to me that things would now be different. And there were two reasons that happened. Increasing competition and the threat of market share being eroded was naturally the first. But India becoming Suzuki’s biggest market globally (surpassing Japan too) made the Japanese HQ in Hamamatsu see India in a different light. It wasn’t just going to be about cheaper manufacturing, large volumes (and margins) anymore. It had to add a lot more value to this business to sustain its market share and long-term growth interests here. After all, owning almost half the share in a large market like India is a very rare thing in the global automotive context. And so Suzuki has gone to work. It had already announced Maruti’s investment in a new plant in Gujarat (which opens its doors this month), and then came the R&D facility in Rohtak. And that was followed up with the Nexa experiment. I have to admit I was a sceptic of that last idea, but its brought one great thing to Maruti’s product offer – cars with safety standards on par with global ones. And its not just about airbags and ABS, its also about build, structural integrity and crash worthiness.
Sure when I worked with Global NCAP on the first, second and third round of crash tests of 'made in India' cars in Germany, Maruti was not exactly the most receptive or responsive. But it has now addressed this – and we are seeing a whole new range of cars that are crash worthy, well-equipped and also efficient – ahead of the deadlines that the Indian government has set for new models. The government has said that all-new models must adhere to the requirement of full-frontal impact, offset frontal, lateral/side impact protection by Oct 1, 2017. For existing models the deadline is Oct 1, 2019. (Pedestrian protection deadlines are Oct 1, 2018/19 respectively.)
The fact that Maruti’s recent launches, Vitara Brezza, Baleno and Ignis adhere to these requirements (and carry airbags/ABS) is commendable. Maruti Suzuki models like the S-Cross, Ciaz, and Ertiga have also been tested and certified by official homologation agencies for advanced safety regulations. And I am confident the new Swift and Swift Dzire coming to us this year will also comply. And that’s the part that’s got me so happy! I have been almost obsessed with the idea that India deserves safer, better-built cars with a lot of basic safety equipment as standard. The fact that Maruti has got with the programme on this front is big news, because when the clear leader does something, others follow.
So kudos to Maruti Suzuki for stepping up to the plate. Hats off to C V Raman who heads Maruti R&D, for shaping and building a team that can work outside the shadow of Suzuki Japan – in producing not just India specific products, but world class cars. And I hope we see this cause a domino effect within the industry – meaning safer cars becoming the standard sooner than expected – for the very deserving Indian consumer. Now if Maruti will also just promise to never ever again feature kids in the front seat of a car in its TV commercials and other advertising, I will be doubly happy! ⌧
A new era dawned when Maruti took a huge leap and developed AGS