Toyota Kirloskar Motor halts production of petrol cars due to slump in demand

Following Maruti Suzuki's footstep who suspended the production of petrol cars earlier this month, Toyota Kiroloskar Motor have announced today that the company has halted the production of its petrol-powered cars as the recent low demand slump continues to diver further. Thanks to the ridiculously increasing cost of petrol. 

"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, deputy managing director, commercial, Shekar Viswanathan said.

However, Vishwanathan did not share the company's plan on how long the petrol car production will continue to be suspended. Currently, TKM rolls out petrol variants of its Etios sedan, Etios Liva hatchback and the Corolla Altis. TKM also produces a petrol variants of the Innova on-demand. 

Expressing similar sentiment as TKM, Fiat India is also considering shutting down its plants for a few days in July as its petrol-powered cars are not selling well. 

"Depending upon the demand and inventory situation, we may shut down our plant for 2-3 days next month. Currently we are monitoring the inventories at both raw material and vehicles production sides," FIAT president and CEO Rajeev Kapoor said.

The sluggish demand has not only impacted passenger car makers, but also hitting the commercial vehicle manufacturers. Tata Motors have also reported that the company plans to suspend the production of commercial vehicles at its plant in Pune for three days this week.

"Given the market scenario, we need to align our production. We will have a block closure from June 22 to June 24 at our commercial vehicle plant in Pune," a Tata Motors spokesperson said.