Suzuki eyes exporting India-made EVs to Japan as early as 2025 -Nikkei

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's Suzuki Motor will start producing electric vehicles in India and export them from there to Japan as early as 2025, the Nikkei newspaper reported on Wednesday.

In a step to make India its global electric car manufacturing hub, Suzuki will also consider supplying India-made EVs to partner Toyota Motor for European markets that would be sold under the Toyota brand, the Nikkei said.

Suzuki declined to comment on the report. Toyota, which owns a 4.9% in Suzuki, was not immediately able to comment.

Nikkei said Suzuki will set up a new production line at a plant in India's western state of Gujarat, where its subsidiary Maruti Suzuki would start producing next autumn.

The battery-powered cars that Suzuki plans to export to Japan would be small sports utility vehicles and would have a price tag of around 3 million yen ($20,043) to 4 million yen, Nikkei said.

The production line would also make gasoline-powered cars and would reach an expected capacity of 250,000 units a year, the newspaper added.

($1 = 149.6800 yen)

(Reporting by Daniel Leussink and Kantaro Komiya; Editing by Jason Neely and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)