India's largest car maker Maruti Suzuki has been struggling to meet the customer demand after the launch of the Baleno premium hatchback and Vitara Brezza compact SUV.
Maruti Suzuki's both plants in Manesar and Gurgaon are running near to their full capacity of production. Hence, delivering pending orders of new models has become a big task for the company. The solution for this dilemma seems to be the upcoming Suzuki plant in Gujarat. Latest reports say Suzuki will manufacture Baleno and Vitara Brezza at the new plant starting from early 2017.
The Gujarat plant will be operated by Suzuki and it will manufacture cars exclusively for Maruti Suzuki. The manufacturing unit will start trial production in January. The first model to be rolled out from the plant will be the Baleno. Following the trial production, full scale production of the Baleno and Vitara Brezza will begin.
Currently, the premium hatchback and compact SUV have over 50,000 pending orders each. The waiting period for Baleno and Vitara Brezza stands at 6-8 months and 8-9 months, respectively. The waiting period of both the vehicles will significantly come down, once the production starts at the new plant. The Gujarat facility will also ease the pressure on Haryana plants.
The Gujarat plant is also expected to manufacture the Ignis crossover and the next-generation Swift hatchback. The Ignis is set to enter India during the festive season, while the new Swift will be launched in 2017. The new plant will be a significant step towards Suzuki's global goal to sell 50 lakh cars by 2020. At least 20 lakh cars are expected to be sold.
