Suzuki Motor plans to invest over 700 billion rupees ($8 billion) in India, Chief Executive Officer Toshihiro Suzuki said, underscoring the country’s growing importance for the Japanese automaker as it forays into electric vehicles production.
This investment will happen over a period of five to six years, Suzuki said in a speech Tuesday, without elaborating. He was speaking at an event in the Hansalpur plant in the western Indian state of Gujarat from where the company will be making its first eVITARA sport utility vehicles.
This facility “will shortly become one of the world’s largest automobile manufacturing hubs, with a planned capacity of 1 million units,” Suzuki said, adding that the eVITARAs manufactured here will be exported to more than 100 countries, including Japan and Europe. The first shipment of these EVs is headed for Europe, its local unit, Maruti Suzuki India, said in a statement.