In a bid to thwart any more slippery in its stronghold of the car market, Maruti Suzuki is in a drive to launch five new CNG versions within a single day. Recently Maruti faced a fall in its share of 50%, an unprecedented fall in its long history, during the Q1 of 2010-11. The CNG versions will be available from its fast selling models like Alto [images], Estilo [images], Eeco [images], SX4 [images] and Wagon R [images]. All these cars will be fitted with factory finishing CNG, said its chief Marketing Manager. The cars will be launched on a single day sometime in August to offer the variety, he added. He explained that the launch will mark a new technological concept and
not cars. In addition there will be two more versions of Alto with 1.0lit K-series engine. He said this new versions will boost the sale of Alto by 25% for its special features.
Maruti is facing a good stint with Alto, by selling 20000 monthly units which made the toll to 14 lakhs during the period of 10 years. The BS IV version of Alto was launched in April along with the 800cc F series engine. He said the pricing of new Alto will be on the range between the top version of Alto and the basic version Estilo. The price range of existing Alto models is between Rs2.29 lakhs and Rs2.81 lakhs whereas the basic Estilo costs Rs3.20 lakhs and the top version is Rs4.10 lakhs. According to the company sources, the Alto K version is designed to give 20.2 lit mileage on Automotive Research Association of India standards. Alto is presently available on retro fitted CNG versions and Martui markets dual fuel (petrol and LPG)mode in 800 and Omni. This preceded LPG version of WagonR which had been since withdrawn by Maruti after the launch of new version. Maruti’s real stint in the car market had been 55% in overall sale of 15 lakh annual units taking its own sale volume of 2, 06,377 units for the three month period ending June 2010. The overall sale of cars during this period was 433641 units.