The country's largest manufacturer of passenger vehicles, Maruti Suzuki, today announced plans to offer the CNG fuel option in select modelsby 2010.
"We hope to make available at least one vehicle model in each segment that is CNG-fuelled," Maruti Suzuki's Managing Executive Officer (Engineering) I V Rao said. Maruti also announced that it will stop making LPG-powered vehicles.
While current CNG-equipped vehicles consist of an air-gas mixture system, which is BS III-compliant, what Maruti will roll out, according to Rao, is a gas-injected system and BS IV-compliant.
"This Bharat IV system will be much costlier than existing options in the market," he said. It costs about Rs 20,000 to fit a CNG kit in a car.
Market sources said the first model that could be fitted with a CNG kit from Maruti could be its bestselling Alto compact car.
