Maruti Suzuki working on diesel engine for mid-size sedans

The country's largest carmaker Maruti Suzuki India (MSI) on Tuesday said it is developing a diesel engine for mid-size sedans, which is likely to be ready by the middle of 2011.

"Currently work is going on for developing a diesel engine for mid-sized sedans. Our engineers are developing it internally and we are hopeful of getting it ready by mid (of) next year," said MSI Managing Director and CEO Shinzo Nakanishi.

To begin with, the company is likely to utilise the new engine for launching a diesel version of its premium sedan SX4, he added. MSI currently sources diesel engines from Fiat for its three models - Swift, DZiRE and Ritz.

When asked about the company's sales for this month, Nakanishi said, "In October, our domestic sales crossed one lakh units for the first time and we are expecting to do so in this month also."

In October this year, the company sold 107,555 units in the domestic market as compared to 95,148 units in September 2010.

The company's domestic sales for the April to October 2010 period saw a jump of 31.4 per cent at 62,837,8 units, as compared to the same period last year.

"However, it will be difficult to maintain such growth from coming month till March next year as the base was very high last year in the corresponding period," Nakanishi said.

Talking about the company's upcoming second and third production units at its Manesar facility, Nakanishi said, "Opening of the second plant will be preponed by about six months to the end of 2011. We are also trying to advance operations at the third plant, which is scheduled to start in 2013."

The company had announced an investment of over Rs 3,500 crore to expand capacity at the Manesar facility. At present, MSI, which is 54.2 per cent owned by Suzuki, has an annual capacity of 8.5 lakh units at its Gurgaon plant, while Manesar can produce 3.5 lakh units annually, with the overall capacity totaling to 12 lakh units per year.

He said the company will close down the operations at the Gurgaon and Manesar facilities for annual maintenance work from December 25, 2010 to January 2, 2011.