Maruti Suzuki's new 5-seater SUV Escudo coming this Diwali
Image Credit: GaadiWaadi
In 2024, Maruti trademarked the name "Escudo" in India. Suzuki already uses this name for the Grand Vitara in several international markets, including its home turf, Japan.
The increase in size is likely intended to provide a larger boot, making the SUV more practical for families and long trips. Currently, the Grand Vitara offers 373 litres of boot space, while the Creta provides 433 litres. This strategic positioning ensures the Escudo appeals to families seeking a versatile yet stylish vehicle.advertisementUnder the hood, the Escudo will retain Grand Vitara's powertrain options, offering a range of options to cater to diverse preferences. A 1.5-litre naturally aspirated petrol engine producing 104bhp will serve as the base option, while a CNG option delivering 88bhp will also be available, reflecting Maruti's focus on cost-effective fuel choices. A 116bhp petrol-hybrid variant for improved fuel efficiency is under consideration.Maruti Suzuki currently offers the Grand Vitara through its Nexa chain of dealerships apart from vehicles like Ignis, Baleno, Fronx, Jimny, XL6, and Invicto. The demand for a bigger and more premium SUV is rather strong in the Arena chain as well. therefore, Maruti has decided to create this new SUV to cater to the Arena dealerships. This will allow the new SUV to take on a larger market, thereby getting the company volumes. Through the Arena channel, Maruti currently sells only one SUV, which is the Brezza.
Image Credit: GaadiWaadi
Speculations had suggested that the new SUV might be a seven-seater variant of the popular Maruti Suzuki Grand Vitara. However, it seems Maruti changed its plans and will launch the Escudo instead.advertisementThe Escudo's arrival comes at a pivotal time for Maruti Suzuki, which is also preparing to launch its first electric SUV, the e Vitara, in September 2025. By offering both ICE and electrified models, Maruti aims to capture a larger share of the evolving automotive market.Subscribe to Auto Today Magazine
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Mint
11 hours ago
- Mint
Renault Triber facelift in mind? Three other cars you can consider at its top trim's price
The Renault Triber recently received a much-awaited facelift, which has revamped the exterior and interior of the MPV. Interestingly, this was the most major facelift the MPV has received since its launch in the Indian passenger vehicle market in 2019. The updated iteration of Triber comes with a revised exterior design, a new interior layout, host of additional features. However, mechanically, it remains unchanged as the Triber continues to be powered by the same 1.0-litre naturally aspirated petrol engine, which is available with a five-speed manual gearbox and optional AMT unit as well. Also, the French auto giant is offering a company-certified aftermarket CNG kit for the manual variants of Triber. The Renault Triber facelift is available at a price range of ₹ 6.30 lakh (ex-showroom) and ₹ 9.17 lakh (ex-showroom). The MPV is available in four trim choices - Authentic, Evolution, Techno and Emotion. The AMT version is available only in the Emotion trim, while the rest of the variants get a five-speed manual gearbox only. The top trim Emotion AMT costs ₹ 9.17 lakh (ex-showroom). If you are considering buying the top trim of Renault Triber, here are what else you can consider at the same price. Maruti Suzuki Ertiga LXi - ₹ 9.11 lakh (ex-showroom) Maruti Suzuki Ertiga is the bestselling MPV in the Indian passenger vehicle market. The Ertiga's base variant LXi costs ₹ 9.11 lakh (ex-showroom), which means it is priced slightly lower than the top trim of the Triber. Maruti Suzuki Dzire ZXi - ₹ 8.94 lakh (ex-showroom) Maruti Suzuki is the bestselling sub-compact sedan in the Indian market. The sedan received its latest generational avatar a couple of months back. It comes with a Global NCAP five-star rating. It comes loaded with a plethora of safety features, while the design and powertrain also come with upgrades. The sedan's second top trim, ZXi, comes priced slightly cheaper than what the Triber commands. Hyundai Aura SX 1.2 CNG - ₹ 9.11 lakh (ex-showroom) Hyundai Aura is a sub-compact sedan from the South Korean auto giant. It competes with the Maruti Suzuki Dzire and comes powered by a 1.2-litre petrol engine. The SX 1.2 CNG variant gets a factory-fitted CNG kit along with the petrol powertrain. It comes priced slightly lower than what the Triber facelift commands.
News18
11 hours ago
- News18
Shareholders Support Steady Electrification—And They Reward Vertical Integration
The India strategy of binary electrification has been rewarded by shareholders. Over 10 years, Maruti Suzuki jumped 270 per cent, while Mahindra & Mahindra had 564 per cent return The journey of automobiles is what Bilbo Baggins of The Lord of the Rings describes as 'there and back again". It starts off as electric, turns to the internal combustion engine (ICE) and comes back to electric. There and back again, the automobile industry has had four pivotal points. First, was in 1881 when Gustave Trouvé demonstrated that automobiles (his was a tricycle) can carry human beings while being powered by batteries. However, the state-of-the-art batteries in the late 1800s were Lead Acid batteries, lacking the energy density to power automobiles over long distances. This led to the second pivotal moment, development of the internal combustion engine (ICE). Daimler and Benz independently invented the ICE in 1885-1886 and powered automobiles. The energy density of fossil fuel-based sources made ICE-powered cars mainstream and battery powered electric vehicles were relegated to niche applications and children's toys. This was the equilibrium until an obscure division of Sony in Fukushima, Japan commercialised the Lithium ion battery to power Sony cameras in 1991. Tesla adopted lithium-ion batteries in 2003 and went into production with the Roadaster in 2008. This introduction of lithium ion batteries to Make Cars Electric Again was the third pivotal moment in automobile history. This led to global automobile manufacturers adopting electric vehicles and announcing massive electrification expenditures in 2022 and that is the fourth pivotal moment. What started off as electric, came back as electric in the end. However, electrification for any automobile manufacturer is not as simple as replacing the engine with batteries. It involves manufacturing or sourcing batteries, organising them into packs, which are further organized into modules, which are then integrated into an electric motor-powered drivetrain. Just to understand the scale at which batteries are required, we can evaluate the batteries required to hypothetically electrify only the four-wheelers sold in India in 2024. Assuming a typical sedan requires about 5,000 lithium-ion battery cells, multiply that with the roughly 4.2 million cars sold in India and we look at 21 billion cells or approximately 230 GWh of battery production. This staggering number of battery cells required has caused a worldwide scramble to change business models, announce capital expenditure and setup battery manufacturing plants. In the electrification game, the strategies taken by automakers can be loosely classified into three groups: 1) Accelerated electrification: Set strict deadlines to electrify, move entirely to electric vehicles and abandon ICE. 3) Hybrid electrification: No strict deadline to electrify, gently introduce hybrids, plug-in hybrids, and fully electric vehicles. Depending on the maturity of the local automobile industry, companies took a different approach. For instance, car makers in Europe which traditionally competed in the luxury car segment had to announce accelerated electrification due to Tesla's initial launch of the luxury Roadster and later Model S. On the other hand, when Tesla announced the more affordable Model 3, the American car makers had to announce accelerated electrification to stay competitive. This led the transatlantic car makers in 2021-2022 to announce aggressive electrification by 2035 and gamble their balance sheets. In Asia, the approach has been more cautious as the local automobile industry predominantly focuses on more affordable options. The Indian carmakers seem to have taken the binary electrification route where the ICEs are the profit generating machines which are being slowly supplemented with the fully electric vehicles. The other Asian car manufacturers have taken the gentle electrification path by offering hybrids in addition to the fully electric. Offering hybrids in addition to fully electric provides strategic advantages like allowing time to setup domestic battery supply chains and the time to develop the charging infrastructure. In addition, hybrids require a tenth of the batteries of fully electric vehicle which allows flexibility to ramp up (more likely) or ramp down (less likely) the electrification path. To compare how these three strategies performed, we can compare how shareholders rewarded the three strategies by finding share price data from Yahoo Finance. To ensure a long-term picture, we compare the 10-year performance (normalised to June 8. 2015) with the assumption that markets are the best judge of strategies in the long term. Tesla was not included in the comparison as its interests are beyond automotive. Figure 1: Comparison of the normalised share price of global automobile manufacturers highlighting the role of electrification strategies (normalised to price on June 8, ,2025 from Yahoo Finance) The accelerated strategy has not been rewarded well by the shareholders. For example, Ford generated 23 per cent return over 10 years, GM generated 77 per cent, Volkswagen was negative. This could have been from the high capital expenditure, technological gaps and the difficulty in moving to all electric vehicles by 2035. But shareholder hesitation towards aggressive timelines does not signal resistance to electrification as highlighted by the performance of the Asian companies. The India strategy of binary electrification has been rewarded by shareholders. Over ten years, Maruti Suzuki jumped 270 per cent, while Mahindra & Mahindra had a 564 per cent return, putting them in the two of the five best performing major automotive stocks in the world. However, the top performing strategy has been the hybrid electrification strategy followed by BYD. While Kia also delivered an impressive 221 per cent, BYD stands out at 773 per cent. BYD stands out for a few reasons. First, It's the only car manufacturer that makes all its batteries, in fact, they sell them to other car manufacturers too. Second, BYD is involved in the entire value chain of batteries from mining of the ores, to active material processing, to assembly, it even has its own fleet of ships to deliver its electric vehicles across the world. Third, from a strategy perspective BYD stopped making ICE in 2022 and pivoted to a hybrids and fully electric vehicles which allowed it to focus heavily on battery manufacturing and technology. This enabled BYD to produce 110 GWh worth of batteries in 2023 (for reference Tesla made 31 GWh of batteries that year). Such vertical integration of batteries manufacturing into their business enabled controlling costs and set technological benchmarks allowing them briefly to be the largest electric vehicle manufacturer in 2024. top videos View all Jumping into electrification without setting up the battery know-how has been negatively viewed by the investors of transatlantic car manufacturers. In contrast, Indian car manufacturers have been prescient to take the steady path and have been earned the approval of their shareholders. But the market's deepest admiration has been for car companies that are vertically integrated. The writer is a Chief Technology Officer of a deep tech startup working on affordable energy storage systems. He holds a Ph.D. from Brown University in Materials Engineering and a and from IIT-Bombay. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18's views. tags : automobile industry Europe tesla view comments Location : New Delhi, India, India First Published: August 04, 2025, 14:14 IST News opinion Opinion | Shareholders Support Steady Electrification—And They Reward Vertical Integration Disclaimer: Comments reflect users' views, not News18's. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
India Today
11 hours ago
- India Today
The sedan that defies SUV wave tops India's best-selling cars in July 2025
In an automotive landscape increasingly led by SUVs, the Maruti Suzuki Dzire has proven its resilience by maintaining a strong foothold in the Indian market. According to industry sources, the Dzire topped the sales chart in July 2025, clocking 20,895 units, a sharp rise from 15,484 units in June and reliable The Dzire's success lies in its ability to strike a balance between affordability, fuel efficiency, and dependability,qualities highly valued in India's cost-conscious market. With a starting price of Rs 6.84 lakh (ex-showroom), it remains an accessible choice for a broad customer base. Its claimed mileage figures: 24.79 km/l for the petrol manual, 25.71 km/l for the petrol AMT, and an outstanding 33.73 km/kg for the CNG variant—make it an economical option for daily commuters and family buyers alike. The CNG trims, priced at Rs 8.79 lakh (VXi) and Rs 9.89 lakh (ZXi), enhance the appeal for budget-driven users. Measuring 3,995mm in length, the Dzire also benefits from sub-4m tax concessions, keeping it competitively priced despite the segment's with the SUV wave, Dzire's practical value proposition and consistent updates have helped it remain a strong performer, evident from its rising monthly The latest Dzire comes with a modern design and feature-rich cabin. It sports a new front grille, sleek LED headlights, and a refreshed fascia for a contemporary look. Inside, it features a 9-inch touchscreen infotainment system with wireless Android Auto and Apple CarPlay, a 360-degree camera, and a sunroof. It runs on a newly introduced Z-Series 1.2-litre 3-cylinder engine, producing 82bhp and 112Nm of torque, paired with either a 5-speed manual or AMT gearbox. Safety is another key highlight, with six airbags, ABS with EBD, ESC, and a 5-star Global NCAP safety rating as commercial aspect Maruti has also broadened the Dzire's appeal with the Tour S, a commercial variant launched in March 2025. Based on the LXi trim, the Tour S starts at Rs 6.79 lakh (petrol) and goes up to Rs 7.74 lakh (CNG). With essential design elements retained and practical tweaks like steel wheels and black door handles, it's tailor-made for fleet operators. The high CNG mileage further enhances its commercial viability, especially for cab services. Additionally, Maruti's extensive Arena dealership network ensures wide reach and convenience for both individual and fleet resale valueadvertisementAnother pillar of the Dzire's enduring popularity is its strong resale value. Known for low maintenance and backed by Maruti's expansive service network, it remains a trusted option in the pre-owned car 20,895 units sold in July 2025, the Dzire cemented its position as not just the top-selling sedan, but also the best-selling car across segments in a market increasingly skewed toward SUVs. Its continued dominance stems from a combination of modern features, fuel efficiency, safety, commercial versatility, and resale compared to rivals like the Honda Amaze, Hyundai Aura, and Tata Tigor, the Dzire pulls ahead with Maruti's brand trust, wider service footprint, and strategic offerings. Unlike the Amaze, the Dzire comes with factory-fitted CNG, making it more attractive to commercial buyers. Its 5-star safety rating edges out the Aura, and its superior fuel efficiency (especially in CNG mode) beats most segment peers. These combined advantages make the Dzire a dominant force in the sedan space, even in an SUV-driven to Auto Today Magazine- Ends
