Maruti Suzuki has had a quiet 2025 in terms of new launches with the eVitara yet to come but India's biggest carmaker has some plans in place with its next product coming soon. This would be most likely called the Escudo and would be slotted along with the Grand Vitara but being at the more competitive end of the 5-seater compact SUV space. This new SUV will come before the eVitara also most likely and feature engines similar to the Grand Vitara as well. However, this new SUV called Escudo will be sold via the Arena dealerships while being more affordable than the Grand Vitara.

 

This new SUV although will come with a longer wheelbase, will come with a 5-seater configuration and would have slightly different interiors. We expect the Escudo to be longer than the Vitara and have more boot space too. Hence, the positioning will make it more of a Carens Clavis rival in terms of being a premium family car although without the third row.

 

This SUV will increase Maruti Suzuki's foothold in this compact SUV segment which spans from Rs 10-25 lakh while there are already two cars there including the Vitara Brezza and the Grand Vitara. The launch of the Escudo would be soon and it could very well come with a 1.5l mild hybrid specification since the full strong hybrid is offered on the Grand Vitara. Both manual and automatic gearbox options would be offered although the Escudo could skip AWD too unlike its Grand Vitara sibling.