Maruti Suzuki , Ertiga lonch in market

"This car is meant for a compact-car customer wishing to upgrade to a bigger car," Managing Director Shinzo Nakanishi said at a press conference. "This [utility vehicles] is a promising segment and we have been largely missing from this segment."

Maruti, along with its component suppliers, spent 4.1 billion rupees to develop the Ertiga.

Customers have started preferring utility vehicles in India where family sizes tend to be large. Local sales of such vehicles rose 16.5% in the fiscal year ended March 31 to 367,012 autos. In comparison, total car sales grew just 2.2% to 2.02 million.

The company has priced the gasoline-powered variants of the model between 589,000 rupees ($11,460) and 730,000 rupees while it will sell the diesel engine ones for 730,000 rupees to 845,000 rupees.