Friday, June 10, 2016
By Kamal Swami
Your Maruti Kitna deti hai ? Question of concern
With an objective to lure buyers towards its upcoming cars, country’s leading car manufacturing company Maruti Suzuki India Limited initiated a series of TV commercials with punch line “Kitna Deti Hai” three years back referring to how much does she give. But now with reports of Maruti’s parent company, Japanese auto giant Suzuki Motors also being enveloped in mileage scandal along with Mitsubishi in Japan the question which three years back was used as a promotional strategy has emerged as question of concern indeed in front of Maruti car owners that how much does their car really gives to them.
It would be interested to know that three months back, Mr. Toshihiro Suzuki, President, Suzuki Motor Corporation had revealed company’s intention of improvising fuel efficiency of petrol and diesel cars developed by it. At that time no one had imagined that soon it would also be involved in the fuel efficiency crisis not someone from external sources but someone from internal sources. According to raids made by investigators of Japanese government the car maker conducted fuel efficiency tests inside their campus rather than conducting them on roads.
Interestingly Maruti Suzuki India Limited is one of the biggest joint ventures of Japanese car maker and alike its parent company it also endorses high performing fuel efficient results delivered by cars rolled out from its production unit in India at the speed of one car per 12 seconds. The doubt regarding fuel efficiency performance of MSIL cars got fired since the Indian arm of Japanese car maker also sends most of its cars for fuel efficiency tests at Suzuki’s track in Japan. Although MSIL’s R&D centre in Rohtak has emerged as main production unit of company but still it is not known that whether it conducts fuel efficiencies test or not. Addressing on the issue MSIL sources said that the process of conducting fuel efficiency test in India is different from Japan.
According to sources of MSIL, “In India, all vehicles are tested for road load and emissions by government-approved agencies. As part of the emissions test, these agencies report fuel efficiency of vehicles as well”.
