Maruti Suzuki launches Vitara Brezza at 7 lakh
India’s largest car maker Maruti Suzuki on Tuesday launcheditsmuch-awaitedcompact sports utility vehicle Vitara Brezza starting at an aggressive price of ` 6.99 lakh (ex-showroom Delhi).
The Brezza comes in six variants, with the top-end model priced at ` 9.68 lakh (ex-showroom). While bookings for the compact SUV commenced on Tuesday, deliveries are expected to begin towards end of March. Although Maruti is a late entrant into the compact SUV market, it is hopeful that its superior reach (over 1,800 showrooms) will help propel the Brezza to the number one spot in the segment.
Currently the Hyundai Creta is the largest selling in the segment, with monthly volumes of around 6,000-7,000 units. Creta was launched at a starting price of ` 8.59 lakh — prices have since gone up. Apart from Creta, the Brezza will compete with the Ford Ecosport, Renault Duster and Mahindra TUV300.
“This (compact SUV) market has been growing at an annual rate of 25% for the last five years and current market volumes are around 140,000. Now that Maruti has entered the segment, it will grow further and we always expand, whichever segment we enter into,” said RS Kalsi, executive director, sales and marketing.
While the Brezza is based on one of Suzuki’s existing platform, the vehicle has been fully conceptualised, designed and manufactured in India. It is 98% localised. For now there are no plans to export the Brezza.
The Vitara Brezza will be available only in a 1.3 litre diesel engine and a manual transmission. Not launching a petrol variant may come as a constraint for Maruti to meet its lofty ambitions in this segment. Maruti officials say that diesel is the ideal fuel of choice for such an SUV, but they did not rule out launching a petrol variant in future. The Brezza also gets automatic headlamps, rain-sensing wipers, push-button start and cruise control to attract buyers.
“The kind of the concept of this vehicle is there, we believe diesel is a good thing to start with, establish it and in the meantime we are also evaluating other powertrains, which can match the performance. Maybe in sometime, you will see a petrol variant too,” said CV Raman, executive director, engineering.
But Maruti may face a problem due to surge in demand due to capacity constraints at its plants in Gurgaon and Manesar. The two plants can produce around 1.5 million units per year and are currently running at almost peak capacity. Suzuki’s new plant in Gujarat, with a capacity of 250,000, is only expected to be operational in early 2017.