Yearly Archives: 2011

Volkswagen may have entered the Indian car market later than most others and very tentatively in the beginning.  But after that it has been very bullish and aggressive.  Volkswagen has created the Polo Cup road racing championship which is one make only championship featuring the Polo car that it sells in India.  Volkswagen is doing this to promote motorsport in India while also promoting itself as a young and dynamic brand.  The drivers selected for the Polo cup this year have been given more intense training according to Motoroids.com.  Power yoga and army style fitness training for mind and body have been incorporated.  This will ensure that Polo cup drivers are properly trained and very fit athletes.  Good thing this.

Volkswagen has been aggressive for the past many years gobbling up various brands such as Skoda, Lamborghini, Bugatti and having significant stake in companies such as Suzuki.  Volkswagen has also been interested in the Heavy Commercial Vehicle space and has now increased its existing stake in MAN trucks to about 40%.  It is well known that VW also has keen interest in Scania the other big HCV player in Europe.

The Indian car market has been growing steadily, even at a time when the rest of the world seemed to be reeling under the recession that slowed down most economies of the world.  Surprisingly the number of cars sold in the month of April this year shows the least number of cars sold in the last two years.  What could be the reason for this?  Are people waiting for new launches since so many have been announced or is it that market has reached a temporary saturation?  Honestly we don’t know but the second reason we have considered could be unlikely.  The next two months’ sales will tell the full story.  The good news however is that April has seen an increase of 30% in exports with the Nano also joining the list of exported automobiles.

Today will be the day when the car space in India will see the launch of two new cars.  It is expected that Audi will launch its spanking new A7 Sportsback (Audi speak for hatchback) at its corporate head quarters in Gurgaon.  More importantly and more relevant to the mainstream car purchasers is the launching of the all new Hyundai Verna incorporating the much touted fluidic sculpture.  All details such as engine specs and prices should be out today.

Tata Motors has been a pioneer in finding low cost but efficient solutions to transportation in India.  The Nano is the most known of these, but there are others which are perhaps more significant.  The Tata Ace was a proper four wheeled small weight category pick up truck that changed the way the last mile transport was looked at.  People took to this product like fish to water because it represented a paradigm shift from the ungainly and inefficient three wheelers which were used.  The Tata Magic was the passenger version that killed the three wheeled seven seater autorickshaws from Force Motors and Mahindra forcing them to follow Tata’s lead.  Now Tata Motors is one step ahead of the competition again by launching a smaller version of the Magic called the Magic Iris.  The Magic Iris is again a proper four wheeled passenger vehicle with a metal body including the top and doors.  It can seat three to four people in comfort and comes with seat belts for all passengers.  We hope that this diesel four wheeler which develops 11 bhp of power will kill the horrible autorickshaw.  The three wheeled autorickshaw is narrow in the front and has a handle bar that turns the front wheel.  The narrow front and the handle bar have been ensuring that the autorickshaw driver turn as they please.  A proper four wheeler with a steering such as the Magic Iris will ensure that the quotient of bad driving will come down significantly.  The load carrier version the of the Magic Iris is the Ace Zip (for half tonne payload) and will be able to take goods to areas that cannot be accessed even by the regular Ace.  These vehicles have been priced below the Rs.2 lakh mark ex-showroom (without octroi) in Maharashtra.

The new duty structure for CKD assembled cars has come into force pushing up costs for the manufacturers from the existing 10% to 32%.  This means that manufacturers are likely to incur higher costs and therefore an increase in prices is expected.  But BMW says that it will not be increasing its prices since it is also assembling engines in India and therefore can still qualify for the old duty structure.  It is unclear what happens to Mercedes, since their engines are assembled for them by Force Motors.  An announcement from Mercedes should be imminent.  Audi will have to come under the new rules.  At the unveiling of the BMW Efficient Dynamics Diesel Hybrid Concept car at Deutsche Motoren in New Delhi the Heavy Industries Minister Praful Patel has said that he along with SIAM has made a representation to the Finance Minister to give two more years before implementing the new duty structure, so that luxury car makers can comply with the rules that bring down the duty structure.

The impending SUV from Force Motors has been spied again, this time with the camouflage actually lessened and with the overall shape of the vehicle more visible.  These new pictures are being carried by BS Motoring on its website.  The said vehicle looks like it is using the body shell of the Guangdong Foday Explorer III.  The grapevine has it that interiors are coming from Thailand and that the engine will be a Mercedes Benz engine.  The chassis aggregates are from Force Motors itself.  The design isn’t the most pleasing and it remains to be seen whether Force Motors’ objective of competing on equal terms with the Tata Safari and the Mahindra Scorpio will be achieved.  Meanwhile the rumour mill is on again and says that next year Force Motors will launch another passenger vehicle.

While it is more or less confirmed that Mahindra intends to bring the Ssangyong KorandoC and the Rexton to India as Mahindra badged vehicles, it says that it has no plans as of now of bringing any Ssangyong cars to India.  Ssangyong though known to be an SUV maker, also makes some cars such as the Chairman which is a stretched version of the previous generation Mercedes Benz E Class platform. The car stable of Ssangyong is a bit of an embarrassment and it is good that Mahindra is not intending to bring those to India.

Is that possible?  Well that is what Autocar India is saying.  There is a report on the website of the magazine which claims that Jaguar is readying its C-X75 Hybrid to take on the mighty Bugatti Veyron and for this it is also enlisting the help of the Williams F1 team.  There have apparently been meetings between Sir Frank Williams and Tata Group CEO, Carl Peters Forester.  Interesting development this.  Will the flywheel based storage of power from regenerative braking be used on the car?  Williams is developing that technology and it will nice to see it on the C-X75 from Jaguar.