NEW DELHI – Hit by a demand slump, Toyota Kirloskar Motor has stopped production of petrol cars, while others like Fiat are considering shutting down plants for a few days next month.
While Tata Motors will stop production of commercial vehicles at Pune for three days this week, Maruti Suzuki India will be having its week-long annual maintenance shut down from next week.
“We are having some amount of inventory for our petrol cars and it has gone up to over 30 days. To control the stock from piling up further, we have stopped production of our entire range of petrol cars from June 16,” Toyota Kirloskar Motor (TKM) deputy managing director (commercial) Shekar Viswanathan told PTI. He, however, did not share the company’s plans on how long the petrol car production will continue to be withheld.
TKM rolls out petrol variants of its small car Liva, sedans Etios and Corolla Altis. It also produces a petrol variant of Innova on-demand.
Viswanathan said the company’s sales of diesel vehicles are steady, but the waiting periods are coming down.
According to Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (Siam) data, TKM had rolled out over two-fold more passenger cars in May that stood at 8,511 units.
