Suzuki Motor Corporation and its Indian subsidiary, Maruti Suzuki India Limited, are expanding their compressed biogas (CBG) operations in the country, with 11 new plants in the pipeline based on cow dung and agricultural waste, Maruti Suzuki India Managing Director and CEO Hisashi Takeuchi said while addressing the 66th Annual Convention of the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM), Moneycontrol reported.
Suzuki Motor Corporation currently operates three cow dung-based biogas plants in India and is working on seven more such facilities, while Maruti Suzuki India is separately developing four agricultural waste-based biogas plants, Takeuchi said. He noted that the country had significant potential to produce biogas from cattle dung, biomass and agricultural waste, stating that “compressed biogas (CBG) has a very strong potential for India.”
According to Takeuchi, CBG is carbon-negative and can help curb stubble burning, thereby improving air quality, besides reducing the country’s dependence on imported fossil fuels and generating income and employment opportunities in rural India. He said CBG was becoming an important enabler of the Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) ecosystem by addressing several national priorities, adding that this “would make CNG a preferred sustainable mobility solution for many more decades.”
Takeuchi said the biogas push was also being supported by the governments of India and Japan, with the prime ministers of the two countries agreeing during the recent India-Japan Annual Summit to scale up biogas production by setting up 1,000 plants in the country.
He reiterated Maruti Suzuki’s multi-technology approach to sustainable mobility, which includes electric vehicles (EVs), hybrids, CNG, biofuels such as CBG and ethanol, and hydrogen, stating that every vehicle sold should contribute toward reducing carbon emissions. He said the company’s sustainable mobility strategy also aimed to improve air quality, keep mobility affordable, strengthen energy security and pursue solutions that could be deployed at scale.
The combined share of EVs, hybrids and CNG models in India’s passenger vehicle sales rose to 32 per cent during April-July FY27, from around 27 per cent in the year-ago period, Takeuchi said, adding that “every third car sold in India today is a clean technology.”
Maruti Suzuki has entered the EV segment with the e Vitara, for which Suzuki Motor Corporation has made India its global manufacturing hub, with more than 46,000 units exported to 50 countries so far. Takeuchi said this had made Maruti Suzuki India’s largest EV exporter, accounting for more than 90 per cent of the country’s EV exports.
