New Maruti Suzuki Grand Vitara receives record bookings: Why buyers are interested in hybrid variants more?

The new Maruti Suzuki Grand Vitara is witnessing a strong response for its strong-hybrid variants as per report and we decode what are the reasons for buyers preferring strong hybrid over mild hybrid?

New Maruti Suzuki Grand Vitara is ready to hit the showroom floors and participate in one of the most-heated segments of the Indian market. Bookings for the SUV are already open, and the automaker has revealed that around 33,000 orders for the Grand Vitara have been received to date. Another interesting revelation from the carmaker confirms that the strong-hybrid version of the Grand Vitara is receiving higher orders than the mild-hybrid variants. Well, this is an interesting trend and is certainly raising questions about why more people are buying strong-hybrid variants.

Shashank Srivastava, Senior Executive Director, Maruti Suzuki India Limited (MSIL), earlier said that the Indian market is shifting towards SUVs, which itself is enough to understand that the Grand Vitara is ready to witness a warm response. Moreover, the affinity of Indians towards mid-size SUVs is exemplarily high. Therefore, helping the Grand Vitara with a high number of bookings.

Now coming to the important part of this 'why strong-hybrid and why not mild-hybrid debate', it is the price point. The strong-hybrid variants will be equally priced to the Hyundai Creta’s feature-loaded turbo-petrol and diesel trims. Also, it will offer a much lower running cost with its claimed mileage of 27.97 kmpl, which also makes it the most fuel-efficient SUV in the country.

In fact, the claimed mileage figure just completely eradicates the benefit of buying the expensive diesel trims only to extract more kilometres from a litre of fuel.

New Maruti Suzuki Grand Vitara: Dimensions

Further reinforcing digits on Grand Vitara’s order book is the SUV’s overall dimensions. After all, it is very similar to the segment-king - Hyundai Creta, in terms of dimensions. However, it boasts a stronger road presence due to its rather upright silhouette.

Well for starters, the Maruti Suzuki Grand Vitara’s strong-hybrid variants will use an Atkinson cycle motor that will displace 1,500 cubic centimetres of working volume. All of it will produce 115 PS and 122 Nm as total output, in tandem with an electric motor. The setup is said to offer a tank range of nearly a dozen-thousand kilometres.

While this makes for another reason to buy the Grand Vitara in its strong-hybrid iteration, simple calculations reveal that it will cost Rs 3.60 to run the Maruti Suzuki Grand Vitara strong-hybrid for a kilometre. With all of this information at your disposal, we hope that it is clear why more buyers are interested in purchasing hybrid variants of this SUV.