new delhi led by suvs and new models the passenger vehicles industry staged a spirited comeback in 2021 despite challenges of semiconductor shortage and a deadly second wave of the coronavirus as sales grew 27 and crossed the psychological 30 lakhunit mark for only the third time in historydespite severe production constraints and a long delivery backlog estimated at 7 lakh units car companies sent 3082 lakh units to dealerships in calendar year 2021 against 2433 lakh units in 2020read alsomost affordable electric cars evs in india price range battery and specsnew delhi electric vehicles have come a long way in india within a very short span of time and an ev launch is quickly becoming a regular affair in the country with the government pushing for ev adoption india today offers a better environment than earlier for carmakers to enter the ev spacethe rate of growth was strong due to a low base as 2020 was the first year to have been impacted by the pandemic leading to a period of tremendous uncertaintypassenger vehicles sales had crossed the 30lakh mark for the first time in 2017 where total sales stood at 323 lakh units in 2018 the industry had closed at 3395 lakh units before slipping in 2019 to 2962 lakh unitsfor maruti suzuki the countrys largest carmaker which was also impacted severely by the semiconductor crunch sales stood at 1365 lakh units in 2021 against 1214 lakh units in 2020 however this was far short of the 1731 lakh units it had sold in 2018marutis rival hyundai however reported a 19 growth in its 2021 domestic numbers at 5 lakh units against 42 lakh units in 2020 the company has also been hit by the semiconductor shortage with the delivery backlog of vehicles such as creta and venue suvs at over 1 lakh unitsshashank srivastava sales marketing director at maruti said companies have initiated steps to tackle the semiconductor shortage though the situation remains fluid from a low production level which was at 40 of capacity we could scale up to 83 by november and to 87 by december we are hopeful that this progress will be maintained as we move ahead srivastava told toihowever he added that demand too remains fluid its difficult to forecast there are factors which still make the situation uncertain these include availability of semiconductors the growth of the economy and how the covid situation pans out he saidthe industry is also grappling with high input costs which has seen prices of vehicles go up over the past few months srivastava said a fresh round of price hikes will happen in the next few daysnew models also led to the charge in 2020 and these included vehicles such as the xuv7oo and the thar for mahindra mahindra the company is grappling with a deluge of bookings which has seen a waiting list that runs into well over a year for some variants the issues around semiconductorrelated parts continue to be a