Within 10 months of starting production of its KB-series engines, the country's largest car maker, Maruti Suzuki has rolled out over one lakh of these units that power the two small cars, A-Star and Ritz.
Riding on the success of this new fuel-efficient technology, Maruti Suzuki India (MSI) has planned to incorporate KB-series engines in other existing as well as new models.
"The company's Gurgaon plant has produced over one lakh KB-series engines, which are installed in the two small cars A-Star and Ritz since its commercial production began in October last year," a company spokesperson said.
When asked about MSI's future strategy to roll out more KB-series engine cars, the official said, "We have definite plans to gradually introduce this next generation light-weight fuel efficient engine series in other models over a period of next 3-5 years."
He, however, declined to name the model next in line after A-star and Ritz which will be powered by the KB-series engine.
The company produces Bharat Stage-III, Bharat Stage-IV and Euro-V emission norms compliant KB-series engines. It produces two different petrol engines, 1 litre (A-Star) and 1.2 litre (Ritz), from the fully integrated engine manufacturing facility, located at MSI's Gurgaon plant.
According to the Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI), A-Star gives a mileage of 19.6 km per litre, while Ritz runs 17.7 km for every litre of petrol.
MSI has so far exported over 50,000 units of Euro-V compliant A-Star, sold as Suzuki Alto in Europe. It also supplies A-Star to another Japanese car maker Nissan under a contract manufacturing agreement with Suzuki. Nissan sells the car in Europe as Pixo.
The engine facility with a production capacity of 2.4 lakh units per annum was a part of the Rs 9,000 crore investment plan announced in 2007 by Suzuki Motor Corp, MSI's parent.
