Maruti Suzuki may introduce more AMT equipped cars

Maruti Suzuki launched the Celerio at the Auto Expo and it became a runaway success for them. With the Celerio’s AMT equipped version in high demand, the waiting period for the specific model has extended upto six months. The AMT transmission seems to have taken the market by storm and Maruti may have plans to introduce more of its cars with this technology. 

According to a report on a website, Maruti has silently taken the Ritz automatic off the market and dealers have mentioned ‘no stocks’ for the Maruti Dzire automatic as well. This could be part of a larger strategy to introduce AMT transmissions in these cars. This point of adding more AMT equipped cars was highlighted by S Maitra, COO, supply chain, Maruti Suzuki India, when interviewed by the website.

 “We have a plan that over the next one year, we will bring AMT manufacturing here in India. Right now, it is being supplied by one supplier – Magneti Marelli – to us from Italy. Magneti Marelli already has a setup in India where it is producing some other components. The company has already drawn up a plan to come to India with its AMT production line within the next one year,” said Maitra. He further confirmed that once localisation of AMT begins, it may find way into more Maruti products.

Although, the AMT transmission is made using components supplied by overseas suppliers, it is still cheaper to produce than the conventional torque convertor AT used by Maruti. Once the AMT transmission is made locally, the price gap between AMTs and manual cars might reduce further. It is most likely that only petrol cars in Maruti’s line up will get the AMT, but there is a possibility of this technology coming in its diesel cars too. 

Source: Autocar