Maruti Suzuki India Ltd, the company that makes every second car sold in India, is working on more diesel variants of its cars. It also has an ambitious plan to launch electric cars and compressed natural gas variants for three or four models in the domestic market.

According to the company's top management, this is part of the company's broad strategy to develop small cars that run on alternative fuel technology. ''We are developing electric car technology for India. But it might take us up to the next five years or more to manufacture and sell electric cars in the domestic market,'' Maruti Suzuki managing director Shinzo Nakanishi told the media in New Delhi.

At the same time, the success of diesel variants of the Swift and DZire models, which are outselling the petrol versions and have a waiting list of months, has prompted the company to introduce diesel engines in its other cars. For instance, the company's hatchback Ritz, to be launched next month, will have a diesel variant sporting a 1.3-litre engine.

''There is a good demand for diesel cars in the Indian market, and we are looking at the possibility of introducing more diesel engine options. But we face some capacity constraints for expansion,'' Nakanishi said. Maruti Suzuki produces 200,000 1.3-litre DDiS diesel engines in India, some of which are exported to the Japanese parent Suzuki Motor Corp's subsidiaries in Hungary.

Nakanishi declined to comment on which cars the company was considering to offer diesel variants. However, there are widespread reports that a diesel version of Suzuki's SX4 saloon would be available in Indian showrooms by mid-2010. If launched, it would compete against the Ford Fiesta, Hyundai Verna, Fiat Linea and Honda's proposed diesel version of the City.

On hybrid cars, Maruti Suzuki chairman R C Bhargava added, "We are working on multi-fuel variants, and some models have been identified for CNG. A CNG kit currently costs over Rs40,000, and that is expensive. Also, these cars can only be launched in 2010 or 2011, when there is a pan-India CNG filling system from companies like Reliance."

Bhargava pointed out that even Delhi lacked sufficient CNG filling systems for commercial vehicles. The company has already launched LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) variants of the Maruti 800 and Wagon R.

Suzuki Motor Corp, which holds 54.2 per cent in Maruti Suzuki, has already taken some major R&D initiatives in alternative fuels, including developing fuel cell technology in partnership with General Motors of the US. The company is using the mid-sized SX4 to conduct R&D in Japan for hybrid technology. The fuel combination being tested is a mix of fuel cells and high-pressure hydrogen.

Nakanishi did not specify if this technology was being considered for India. Earlier vehicles tested by Suzuki Japan for hybrid technology include small cars like the Wagon R for the Japanese market.

Nakanishi said the R&D unit in Japan is currently addressing two key challenges in developing electric cars for India - mileage per charge and price. ''Cars available in the domestic market are claimed to give, say, 120 km per charge. What this implies is 120 km for a single passenger - which means that it applies only to the driver of the car,'' he said.

''If another passenger joins, the travel range per charge drops to 60 km. If a third persons sits at the back, the range drops to 30 km. We are trying to address this issue in our R&D work,'' he said.

On pricing, Nakanishi said, ''You have Honda and Toyota, which have proven, commercially viable hybrid technology cars. But internationally, they sell in small volumes. Globally, Suzuki is known as a low-cost car manufacturer selling in large volumes. We would like to achieve that for electric cars in India.''