How Maruti raced to No.1 in the ‘SUV’ lane
New Delhi: A year ago, Maruti Suzuki India Ltd’s share of the Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV) pie was just 9.5%, way thinner than then leader Tata Motor’s 22.6% slice. Indeed, Maruti was then the fifth biggest SUV maker in the country, even trailing South Korea’s Kia, which had entered the market in 2019. However, in the first half of 2023-24, Maruti, long renowned as a maker of frugal, fuel-efficient small cars, nosed ahead of Mahindra to become the largest SUV maker in the country.
How did it pull off that stunning feat? To some extent, the answer, say auto analysts, is marketing. The industry today has a penchant to pass off any vehicle with raised ground clearance as an SUV, and it’s a sin just about every automaker is guilty of, say the industry watchers. Maruti’s dominance, they add, has been inflated by vehicles such as the Fronx, which do not conform to the traditional definition of an SUV.
To be sure, Maruti is not alone in this; the same can be said of Tata Motors’ Nexon and Punch; Hyundai’s Creta, Venue and Exter; and Kia’s Sonet and Seltos. An SUV, by definition, is a large, powerful car with an engine that supplies power to all four wheels. To the uninitiated, most cars around the world are either front- or rear-wheel drive, which means power from the engine is supplied only to two wheels.
While that is good enough in most conditions, a vehicle that needs to go off the road needs the engine to power all its wheels. So, even if the front or rear wheels get stuck in mud, slush, sand or a ditch, power from the other wheels can drag the vehicle to safety. That is how an SUV was perceived to be until a decade ago.
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