Maruti Suzuki sells more than 50,000 AMT-equipped vehicles

Maruti Suzuki has announced that sales of its vehicles equipped with Auto Gear Shift (automated manual transmission or AMT) have crossed 50,000 units.

The Maruti Suzuki Celerio hatchback, which was launched in February 2014, was the first car in India to get AMT technology. The company then used the technology in the Alto K10 hatchback. Maruti claims that today, vehicles equipped with AMT account for 25% of the sales of the Celerio and Alto K10 put together.

The Celerio and Alto K10 are powered by a 1.0-litre, 3-cylinder petrol engine that puts out 67 BHP and 90 Nm of torque. AMT-equipped vehicles are popular in markets like Delhi NCR, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad and Kochi.

The technology is said to offer the convenience of an automatic transmission with the fuel efficiency of a manual transmission. It is not as expensive as a conventional automatic gearbox. The system does not need a clutch to be depressed, which reduces the effort required to drive the vehicle, thus making the car relatively stress-free to drive in traffic.

Maruti Suzuki has set itself a goal of selling 2 million cars annually by 2020.