Maruti Suzuki will soon stop production of the Alto 800 along with the Maruti Omni minivan in the second half of 2019. Maruti Suzuki senior Vice President- Engineering, Research, Design & Development (Chassis), Deepak Sawkar, has confirmed that the company will discontinue all its models that cannot be made ready for the upcoming Bharat New Vehicle Safety Assessment Program (BNVSAP) and BSVI emission standards.
In Maruti Suzuki's existing product lineup, 60% models meet the future BNVSP safety norms and BSVI standards. The carmaker aims to update its entire product lineup for the new crash test norms before three months of the deadline (i.e. July 2019) and for the BSVI emission norms before January 2020.
Older Maruti Suzuki cars were designed when these regulations didn't even exist and making them comply to the new crash test and emission norms will be a complex and expensive process, explained Sawkar. Therefore, the company would prefer to make investment in new models instead of updating the existing ones.
Maruti Suzuki started its journey in India with the Maruti 800 back in 1983. The car after ruling Indian roads for years, the M800 was discontinued in 2004 and was replaced by the Alto. And this too made several sales records and entered its second generation in 2012 as Maruti Alto 800. The hatchback has been a super success for the Indo-Japanese carmaker since its arrival and continues to be among the top-selling models for Maruti Suzuki.
