The country’s largest carmaker Maruti Suzuki India (MSI) will phase out all diesel cars from its portfolio with effect from April 1, 2020.
“From April 1, 2020 we will not be selling diesel cars,” MSI chairman RC Bhargava said.
The company currently sells a range of diesel vehicles. Around 23% of all units sold by the company in the domestic market currently are diesel cars.
The car firm forecast a weak rate of growth for the current fiscal year amid an industry-wide weakening of demand, sending the carmaker’s shares down as much as 2%. The country’s biggest automaker, majority owned by Japan’s Suzuki Motor Corp, said it expected production and sales to grow between 4% and 8% for the financial year started in April. Last year, the company targeted a 10 percent rate of growth for sales.
Growing use of app-based cab services such as Ola and Uber Technologies Inc, tighter credit and market uncertainty ahead of India’s general election have all weighed on the auto industry, hurting sales of private cars.