Johnson Cherian.
The country’s largest car maker Maruti Suzuki on Thursday unveiled the new version of its S-Cross model, in the anticipation of spurring up the cross-over vehicle’s sales by 10% to 20%.
The new model will replace the S-Cross launched in August 2015 as the first premium offering from the company’s retail channel NEXA. The car will be available across the country in the next couple of days.
“When we say it’s an ‘all-new’ S-Cross, we really mean it… looks, technology, everything is new… Along with our suppliers, we have invested over ₹100 crore towards development of the new S-Cross,” Maruti Suzuki senior executive director, marketing and sales, R.S. Kalsi said.
Mr. Kalsi added that the company has sold 53,000 units of the previous S-Cross in 2 years in India. Besides, Maruti Suzuki has exported 4,600 units of the model.
The new S-Cross comes with a 1.3 litre diesel engine (DDiS 200) with Smart Hybrid technology. This is the third model in the company’s portfolio with this technology, after Ciaz and Ertiga. There will be no petrol engine variant of the new S-Cross.
“Right now, in this segment, 80% vehicles sold are diesel vehicles because it gives good torque. We also have Vitarra Brezza which is only diesel and it is very popular,” Mr Kalsi said.
With the Smart Hybrid the company claims to have brought down emissions in the car to as low as 105.5 gm/km, compared to around 111 gm/km in previous S-Cross. The new car comes with features such as idle-stop-start, torque assist, brake energy regeneration system.
“With the new model, we expect that sales would go up by 10-20%,” he told The Hindu.
All variants of the new Maruti Suzuki S-Cross facelift will come with dual airbags and ABS as standard, and the new model is compliant with the upcoming safety norms as well, the company said.
Talking about Nexa, Mr. Kalsi said, “Nexa is the brightest star in Maruti’s transformation. If Nexa was a company, it would be the third largest automaker in the country.”
