Maruti Suzuki India Ltd on Monday said it would upgrade the engines of its flagship M800 hatchback and the Omni van to meet new emission norms that will come into effect on 1 April, 2010. Last month, the company had announced that it was planning to phase out its two most popular models, but now it seems to have had a change of heart.

"We are working to modify the M800 and the Omni to be compliant with the Bharat Stage IV norms," I V Rao, managing executive officer for engineering at the local unit of Suzuki Motor Corp, told reporters at its Gurgaon plant near Delhi. "From the technical, engineering point of view, I am confident that the engines will be ready (on time)."

India will implement the Bharat Stage IV emission norms, equivalent to Euro IV standards, in 11 cities initially. The rest of the country will continue follow the less stringent Bharat Stage III norms for a while.

Another senior executive at Maruti, India's biggest car maker by sales, is reported by the Wall Street Journal as saying that the company plans also to upgrade the Omni van's engine so that it can be sold all over the country even after the new norms kick in.

Maruti is also scouting for expatriate Indian engineers working with troubled carmakers in the US, Europe and Japan to develop its own cars from scratch in India. The Gurgaon R&D centre, one of the largest such Suzuki facilities outside Japan, is being strengthened to develop new cars independently.

''We are doing a global search for engineers and technocrats to develop new team leaders to equip the company to gain competence in making structural changes in our existing cars as well as developing new concept models for Maruti,'' Rao said. Suzuki has already announced $2 billion investment by 2010 in India for capacity expansion and new product development.
 
Rao added that the company will increase headcount in its R&D division to 1,000 by the end of March 2010, as the firm gears up to meet parent Suzuki Motor Corp's aim of making the Indian subsidiary a global hub for small car development. The R&D centre is being developed to be on par with Suzuki's facility in Japan. It will also have crash test centre.

"Currently our R&D strength is 720 people and it will be increased to 1,000 by March, 2010. We are now looking out for more experienced people," Rao said. Suzuki Motor Corp, which holds a majority stake in Maruti, has already declared that India would be the global small car development hub outside Japan for other markets, he added.

Until now Maruti's technical expertise had been restricted to giving a facelift to older Suzuki cars like the Zen and Omni, and upgrading them to meet new emission norms. Although the Indian R&D team was involved in the development of the Swift, Dzire and SX4 models, the major work on them was conceived in Japan.

Maruti's top brass from the R&D and personnel departments have been looking to expand and develop teams for specific high-tech fields like car design, styling, power train (engines & gears) development, modelling, and structural bodywork.

Maruti currently has around 15 Japanese executives and is looking to boost technical know how to develop new vehicle platforms and an array of power train technologies including alternative fuels, hybrids and electric vehicles.

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