Audi, the German luxury car manufacturer, held the inaugural edition of the Audi Twin Cup – Technology 2011 in Aurangabad, India. 13 of the best technical teams from Audi dealerships across India participated in the exciting finals held for two days and competed for the championship title. The team from Audi Delhi demonstrated their perfection in service and emerged as winners in the keenly contested India finals, followed by an impressive performance by the team from Audi Hyderabad which secured second position.

Gerhard Pretorius, Head, After Sales, Audi India, handed over the Audi Twin Cup – Technology 2011 trophy to the winning team from Audi Delhi.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           Winners Audi Delhi_ L-R Mohammad Aqil Saifi,Vinod Kumar Sharma,Ajay Kumar,Satindar Rawat – Service Head, Audi Delhi.

Runner-up Audi Hyderabad_L-R Gerhard Pretorius, Rajesh Jasti,Pavan Kumar- Service Head, Audi Delhi,Haneef Abdul,Gopala Rao Jonnalagadda.

This is now becoming a regular Ford practice.  Like it did last year, Ford will ensure that all its dealerships will open their doors to the public tomorrow that is the 4th of December, 2011 (Sunday) at 8.00 AM and will keep them open till the stroke of midnight.  Ford wants its prospective customers and their families to have a Sunday outing and experience the different Ford vehicles that are available.  From the humble but best selling Figo hatchback to the huge and imposing Endeavour SUV, people can try out all the Ford cars.  But Ford, we are sure will be hoping that more people will be drawn to its excellent but slightly overpriced new Fiesta.  Riot Engine had the privilege of driving the Fiesta and we found the car to have the typical Ford DNA of excellent handling and a responsive engine.

Ford India has said that it will be consolidating on the gains of the Figo induced increase in numbers and will by surprising the Indian car buyer with a few surprises.  Remember Ford has said that it will launch eight new vehicles by 2015 and Autocar India has already said that the compact SUV the EcoSport will be displayed at the Auto Expo.  Mr. Michael Boneham has talked about surprises in the plural and not in the singular so there is a likelihood of more than one new model being showcased at the Auto Expo which is just about a month away.  Exciting times ahead, watch out for goose bumps.

The Rapid from Skoda may not be off to a spectacular start but it does seem to have started reasonably well with 1600 bookings confirmed for the car in its first month.  It appears that Skoda’s positioning of the Rapid below its near identical sibling the Volkswagen Vento has not hurt its prospects.  What remains to be seen is about how the Rapid’s entry will impact on the fortunes of the Vento.  The interiors are identical (save for the gear shift stick and are quite low rent on both the Vento and the Rapid) the exterior save for the face and the rear lights is identical in both cars and the side profile is something that shows them to be absolutely identical.  Will Volkswagen’s ploy expand its and Skoda’s share in the market or will one cannibalize into the sales of the other?  The answer to this question will hold great importance to the other badge engineered car, the Renault Pulse which is essentially the Nissan Micra with a slightly altered snout.

The Tata Nano which was expected to sell in such large numbers that roads would be chock a block with them, has failed when it actually came to the hustings.  There have been a number of reasons such as shifting of the factory from Singur to Sanand, fires and absolutely no proper marketing, that have contributed to its non-performance despite being a head turner.  Tata tried to rectify things and even crossed the 10,000 figure in sales per month once before numbers plummetted to abysmal levels.  Tata is now investing significantly in the marketing of the little car and sales have again been seeing an upward trend.  In November the Nano has sold 6,401 numbers and one hopes that this not yet another false dawn.  The Nano surely deserves healthy numbers and given its price and performance it should be selling more than the present best seller, the Alto from Maruti.

Mahindra, the home grown major in the utility vehicle space is sitting pretty with its Bolero selling more than 8 thousand units every month with the Scorpio raking in more than 4 thousand units.  The Xylo too sells in decent numbers and Mahindra in order to increase its strangle hold on the UV market launched its first ever monocoque, front wheel driven SUV, the XUV 500 a couple of months ago to tremendous response from customers.  Potential buyers not only thronged the Mahindra showrooms to eyeball the XUV 500 but also to put their money for a booking.  This led to more than 8 thousand bookings in just a couple of days of launch and Mahindra decided to close the bookings till such time that it could rationalize the production of the XUV 500 and ensure that all customers get their vehicle without too much waiting.  Now Mahindra has announced that bookings for the XUV 500 will be re-opened in the month of January.  It must be said that all this is happening with the XUV 500 not yet having been launched all across India.

In the 21st Century the success story of Bajaj Auto can be attributed to the Pulsar range of motorcycles that were first introduced in the year 2001.  The Pulsar started of as a 150cc and 180cc motorcycles before reaching 220cc and later 200cc (which has subsequently been axed from the line up) and also 135cc.  What ties all these engines together today is the fact that they all feature the now famous Digital Twin Spark ignition or Dts-i as Bajaj likes to call it.  In fact the Pulsar 135 cc even sports four valves along with the Dts-i technology and it is believed that future Bajaj engines will have four valves rather than two for optimal engine performance. Dts-i technology was first introduced in the year 2003. The success of the Pulsar range and to an extent the Discover range of motorcycles (they also use the Dts-i technology) has meant that the number of engines using Dts-i tech has crossed the 10 million mark.  That is a significant milestone and one expects that when Bajaj launches the all new Pulsar range to coincide with the 10 years of Pulsar, there will also be a celebration of the Dts-i technology.

Honda has passionately hated diesel engines.  Market pressures in the European markets forced it to develop a 2.2 litre diesel engine which it plonked into various cars such as the Accord (Europe model) and the CR-V.  A couple of years ago, Honda had announced that it sees petrol-electric hybrids as the future and also said that it was suspending development of new diesel engines.  However, key markets like India and Europe have forced Honda to have a re-look at its diesel engine strategy.  In India, diesel engines are preferred for two reasons. One being the cost of diesel being significantly lower than petrol and the other being the greater mileage that diesel engines give compared to petrol engines.  In Europe, diesel engines are seen as more environmental friendly (they have highly refined diesel fuel available) and also as being fuel efficient.  Moreover, hybrids are yet very expensive and out of the reach of most people and this has a huge impact in countries such as India.  Therefore, Honda has developed a 1.6 litre i-Dtec diesel which is likely to find its way in cars such as the Civic.  It is also rumoured that Honda is developing diesel engines of even lower cubic capacities for use in cars such as the City and the Jazz.  In markets like India, European manufacturers such as Volkswagen and Fiat, Indian manufacturers such as Maruti and Tata and even Korean manufacturer Hyundai have diesel engines powering their various car models.  Honda is the only major player which does not have diesel engines for its cars.  Honda seems to righting this wrong.

Maruti has officially said that it will be displaying a compact SUV along with the Ertiga MPV at the Auto Expo.  The details of the platform on which the SUV will be built are not yet out but one assumes that it could be the same stretched SX4 platform on which the Ertiga is built. Toyota builds the Innova and the Fortuner on the same platform so we assume that the Ertiga and the compact SUV also could be sharing a platform.  Maruti has also said that it will be showing other cars such as the Palette, the MR Wagon and Solio will be on display.  Maruti is keen on gauging customer reaction to the 660 cc engines that the Kei jidosha cars in Japan use.  If customers react positively there is a probability of these engines powering some of the cars.  In the days when petrol prices are high it makes abundant sense to use smaller displacement engines which are more fuel efficient.

Zooming ahead on account of consistent success of its premium and commuter segment bikes coupled with innovative marketing strategies, India Yamaha Motor registered a total sales growth of 29.2% in November 2011 with a sale of 39,162 units vs. 30,310 units in November 2010. In domestic markets, the sales grew 24% year-over-year at 28,178 units in November 2011 vs. 22,710 units sold in the same period last year. The export figures stood at 10,984 units in November 2011 while 7,600 motorcycles were exported in November 2010, a growth of 44.5 %.

Speaking on the results, Mr. Jun Nakata, Director-Sales & Marketing, India Yamaha Motor Pvt. Ltd., said, “We are very happy with the consistent sales growth that we’ve been witnessing this year. The new YZF-R15 Version 2.0 along with FZ & SZ series is driving our sales in both domestic and export markets. We plan to reach out to customers in tier II & tier III cities and are expanding our sales & service network in these regions. Our efforts towards enhancing our relationship with our esteemed customers through various initiatives like the Yamaha Safe Riding Science, R15 One Make Race Championships and the Sales & Service camps have also been very fruitful.”

Yamaha continues to reinforce its relationship with the customers and has launched the ‘YES!YAMAHA’ campaign that endeavors to provide the Best 3S Experience so that the customer always appreciates Yamaha and accepts the brand like the word “YES”. The company is making steadfast efforts by conducting various consumer-centric marketing initiatives such as ‘Bring back the Joy’ campaign wherein various customer interactive activities are conducted locally so as to reach out to the customer right at his doorstep.

About India Yamaha Motor Pvt. Ltd.

Yamaha made its initial foray into India in 1985. In August 2001, Yamaha India became a 100% subsidiary of Yamaha Motor Co., Ltd, Japan (YMC). In 2008, Mitsui & Co., Ltd. entered into an agreement with YMC to become a joint-investor in the motorcycle manufacturing company “India Yamaha Motor Private Limited (IYM)”.

IYM operates from its state-of-the-art manufacturing units at Surajpur in Uttar Pradesh & Faridabad in Haryana and produces motorcycles both for domestic & export markets. With a strong workforce of more than 2,000 employees, IYM is highly customer-driven and has a countrywide network of over 400 dealers. Presently, its product portfolio includes VMAX (1,679cc), MT01 (1,670cc), YZF-R1 (998cc), FZ1 (998cc), Fazer (153cc), FZ-S (153cc), FZ (153cc), SZ, SZ-X & SZ-R (153cc), YZF-R15 (150cc), SS125 (123cc), YBR 125 (123cc), YBR 110 (106cc) and Crux (106cc).