A Toyota plant in southern India would in August begin building a hybrid sport utility vehicle developed by Suzuki, the companies said.
Green investors have criticised Toyota, the world’s largest carmaker by sales, for slowness in moving its product line-up to all-electric, battery electric vehicles . Toyota last year committed to spending $60 billion by 2030 to electrify its range of vehicle models, but only half of that is for the development of fully electrics ones.
Suzuki committed in March to investing $1.4 billion in the country to produce BEVs and batteries, but its local unit, Maruti Suzuki , India’s biggest carmaker, has said it will not launch a fully electric vehicle before 2025.