Maruti Suzuki India Limited (MSIL) has clarified that its upcoming plant in Sonipat is primarily going to manufacture petrol, diesel and CNG cars.

Electric vehicles as announced earlier will roll out from its Gujarat plant with the first EV due in 2025. Upon assessing demand for EVs, it will utilise its other plants, including the Sonipat plant for EV manufacture.

“Car plants these days are generally flexible to manufacture different models. The first EV production will start in Gujarat. We will watch the market demand. If demand increases significantly then we will accordingly have to decide where all to produce EVs,” said Rahul Bharti, executive director, corporate affairs, MSIL.

The company though is not utilising its existing capacity of 22.5 lakh units per annum spread over its several plants in Haryana and Gujarat to the full due to semi-conductor shortage. Yet it is investing Rs 11,000 crore in capacity expansion.

“Our existing plant capacity has some scope of more utilisation owing to the semiconductor shortage. We are watching market demand growth to plan our capacities. However, if the overall market has to grow at a healthy rate it cannot happen without the growth of the mass segment,” said Bharti.

Over the last two years the size of the entry -level market has got reduced.