India to play key role in Suzuki’s next 10-year strategy

Under its “Technology Strategy 2026 for 10 Years Ahead”, Suzuki will target a 50% reduction in new-model development lead time, alongside a 30% improvement in development efficiency and a 50% improvement in manufacturing efficiency by 2030.

The company plans to achieve this by changing the way vehicles are developed, moving away from a sequential process towards concurrent development, in which planning, design, production, quality and procurement are brought together from the beginning.

Suzuki will also increase its use of digital engineering and modularisation, allowing technologies and components to be shared across models while products are adapted to individual markets. The company said this would enable development and production to be optimised as an integrated process.

India will have a larger role in this global strategy. Suzuki plans to strengthen the country as a manufacturing and export hub, targeting annual production capacity of around four million units by 2030. The company said technologies developed in Japan would be refined into vehicles suited to individual markets, with India among its key bases for producing vehicles for domestic and overseas customers.

“We will continue to strengthen our production capacity in India, and aim for 4 million units per year from fiscal year 2030 onward,” Toshihiro Suzuki, CEO of Suzuki Motor, said. Suzuki’s India strategy will also extend beyond vehicle manufacturing.

Its biogas business in India is becoming an important part of its multi-pathway approach, with three plants now operational. The strategy does not mark a shift away from conventional powertrains towards battery electric vehicles.

Instead, Suzuki plans to continue with a multi-pathway approach, combining battery EVs, hybrids and carbon-neutral-fuel vehicles depending on local infrastructure, energy availability and customer use. For India, this includes continued investment in CNG and CBG technologies.

Suzuki said CNG vehicles account for about 40% of its sales in India, while it is also developing CBG technology that can use existing CNG vehicles and infrastructure. The company is also developing a next-generation direct-injection turbocharged engine aimed at growth markets such as India, with a longer-term goal of pushing thermal efficiency towards 50%.

At the same time, Suzuki is pursuing lighter vehicles, saying it has identified a path to reduce vehicle weight by 100 kg by 2030, with studies underway for reductions of up to 120 kg. The company said this would help reduce energy consumption while meeting increasingly stringent safety requirements.