Polo is launched in India

Volkswagen India launched much awaited hatchback Polo in India in Petrol and Diesel versions. The petrol version can be seen in showrooms and road from March and the Diesel version will be available from may 2010.

Volkswagen has its Passat, Jetta, Touareg the suv, The beetle and Phaeton in Indian market. Apart from its own brand, Volkswagen also has the Audi and Skoda brands India.

GM gearing up for good 2010

GM India that operates under Chevy brand in India launched its automatic version of Premium sedan Cruze. The manual version was launched in late 2009, that competes with Honda Civic, Toyota corolla Altis.

GM launched the popular hatchback version “Beat” in February recorded record booking of 15000 cars in 24 hrs. Their small car version Spark is fairly popular. GM in India has Aveo, mid size sedan, Tavera, a utility vehicle that is popularly used as a taxi, Opra big size sedan and Optra an SUV.

GM has a wait time for most of models in India. GM manufacturers its vehicles from Halol in Gujarat and Talegaon near Pune. GM now with its new stream of vehicles lined up and an upbeat Indian car market has recently announced of three shifts at Halol and 2nd shift at Talegaon.

GM that has its technical centre in Bangalore India caters to its global product design, development initiatives to reduce R&D costs is also expected to increase its workforce by 1000 in next one year. The powertrain group part of R&D is expected to grow by 200 and also start contributing to the fuel cell initiatives of GM.

GM has its popular Equinox fuel cell that is being test driven since end of 2007 across USA.

picture - GM India

Mahindra to focus on multi brand service chains

Mahindra & Mahindra through its used car retail chain FirstChoice is planning to enter in to Automobile servicing. The aftermarket service sector in India that is pretty much unorganized is estimated to be Rs20,000 crore. Mahindra is expected to have 450 service stations in next 3 to 4 years.

Carnation, the venture stated by Jagdish Khattar after his stint with Maruti Suzuki as MD is the first chain in this supposed to be the sunrise sector in Automotive sector. This was followed by Bosch India that has planned to have 500 centres by end of 2010.

With growing sales or cars in India and increasing real estate costs the cost to run the service centres is a cause of concern for the OEMs leading to the growth of multi-brand service station concept. These concepts are very popular and well proven in western countries.

With increase in technology being used the cars, the presently dominant unorganized sector might loose the confidence from the customers and look for more liable brands.

The new Indian emission standard taking its first toll

The new emission standards to meet the Bharat IV (EURO IV) standards from April 1st is taking its first toll in the form of Maruti suzuki India’s most popular version Martui 800 going to be taken out from the market in 13 cities.

From April 1st, Bharat IV standard fuel us going to be used in 13 cities across India that includes, Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Pune, Surat, Kanpur and Agra. Bharat III will be implemented across India for gasoline and diesel operated vehicles.

The new norms would put pressure on the OEMs to upgrade their present models in the above mentioned cities that would add pressure on the margins.

With the development Martui Suzuki has decided not to upgrade its first ever model to hit Indian roads, the Maruti 800. Maruti 800 was the highest selling cars that comes below Rs 2.7Lakhs until the new Zen and now the Alto.

TATA motors laying greener roadmap

TATA motors announced that it is testing its fuel cell powered busses and LCV developed by their London technology centre. TATA motors has been working on greener technologies for their vehicle base. TATA acquired 50.3% share from Miljo Grenland, a electric vehicle technology supplier in 2008 through it’s European Technology centre in London. Miljo is helping TATA in building electric car on its popular Indica platform and also developing polymer based lithium ion battery technology.

The hydrogen fuel cell technology is going to be used for its bus and LCV fleet. Presently most of the buses in the rapid transit systems across the world are CNG driven.

Renault planning its own plan for India

Renault the French automaker that came to India about 5 years back with a lot of plans and joined hands with Indian partners is planning to lay its own roadmap.

Renault started a JV with the Indian utility vehicle leader Mahindra to build and launch Logan model in India. However this relationship has had its own ups and downs with both parties sticking to their own strategies in pricing, styling leaving the car sales way below the market avg. Perhaps Logan is one of the misses on Indian roads in recent times. Renault also has an agreement with the Indian 2 wheeler major Bajaj for a small car project.

According company sources Renault is in final stages to renegotiate the JV status based on the present health of the partnership.

Renault that owns the Japanese car maker Nissan cars, has a manufacturing facility in Chennai and panning to bring its own range of vehicles by 2011 and planning to setup its own distributor channel.

Eicher motors posts healthy Jan sales

Eicher motors, the CV and LVC maker posted a robust 192% sales growth with volume of 2742 units. Earlier the market leaders in the CV segment both TATA motors and Ashok Leyland had posted an exceptionally good numbers.

CV was the most impacted in the recent slowdown but finally the Jan has seen a likely turnaround.

Eicher that has a 50% joint venture with AB Volvo in India with Volvo using the Eicher distribution and aftermarket network with 50% ownership in the company and having a mixed R&D and Product development activities jointly.

GM e-spark batteries to be sourced from India

The e-spark, electric version of the spark model by GM will have the batteries from Indian battery vendor now. Initially GM had announced the batteries would be sourced from China and Japan.

GM in a recent note announced that they will be finalizing the battery vendor for Acid lead batteries and further provide the Lithium ion batteries. The e-spark is expected to be launched at INR700,000.

Earlier GM had announced a EV technical collaboration with Reva. Reva, the electric car company based out of Bangalore has been in EV car business since over a decade and has now commercially available car variants in India and some export exposure.

The leading Indian battery makers include Amar raja battery, the market leader, Exide Industries, Amco, TATA green.

New small cars waiting to hit the Indian road

The small car segment making about 70% of the car market in India is waiting to see new entrants soon. Most of the cars were displayed at Delhi AutoExpo 2010.

All the OEMs are really terming these launches as make or break for their mid term plans. This segment has already having the Maruti Suzuki Swift, the Swift Dzire, Hundai i20, Tata Indica Vista and Fiat Grande Punto.

Chevy Beat which presently is in the forefront that was launched a day before the inauguration of AutoExpo has already created a buzz with 10000 bookings in a months time.

VW Polo is planned to be commercially launch in March under this segment. Recently the 11,111,111th model was rolled out from its Chakan plant in Pune. The small car version was launched in 1975 and in India VW expects to touch 100,000car sales by 2015. The VW polo will be built on a state of the art flexible assembly line from where the Fabia, the Skoda variant is built.

Ford Figo, again a make or break story for Ford is expected to be launched by end of February from its Chennai plant.

Etios, the Toyota’s entry in this segment is expected to be launched by the end of this year. Toyota presently has about 3% market share in Indian market with MUV, Innova being the biggest contributor, Corolla Atlis, Camry and Fortuner, the hybrid Prius. The Etios is going to be launched in both Hatchback and Sedan variants

Maruti focuses on R&D to be self sufficient by 2012

Maruti Suzuki the number of car maker in sales volume wants to focus on increasing its R&D capabilities in India with local talent. The company a JV between Suzuki and Maruti Udyog Ltd (Indian state owned) has been aided by the Japanese engineering for most of its product lines in India. Maruti Suzuki has enjoyed a robust 50% market share consistently in the last decade, however the recent launch of an array of small cars is expected to dent its market share.

Maruti is expected to invest around 1500 crores in next 3-4 years at its R&D facility in Rohtak that localize most its Product design and engineering activities to bring down the R&D costs that would play critical role in its cost competitiveness.

AIAM inducts Mahindra in the trade group

The Association of International Automobile Manufacturers Inc inducts Mahindra and Mahindra, the Indian utility vehicle leader in to its trade association.

AIAM is a trade association consisting of 15 global auto OEMs that control almost 40% of US, car, SUV, pickup market. The association aids the legislative & regulatory guidelines, promotes trade.

Some of the other members include Toyota, Honda, Ferrari, Nissan, Mitsubishi, Peugeot. The membership would speedup Mahindra plan to launch its pickup line of vehicles in US and also have the production line in US. The project is delayed several times to be able to meet US safety and emission norms.

Scorpio automatic launched in Egypt

Mahindra launched the automatic version of its Scorpio model in Egypt. The Mahindra Scorpio model existed in Egypt since 2008 with its annual version.


The Automatic version is equipped with 6 speed gearbox and mHawk engine. Mahindra operates in Egypt through their partner Baverian Auto Group.

(picture - Mahindra)

BMW taking leasing route to increase its presence

Luxury car maker BWM is starting the leasing of its range of cars for specified time. This would ensure the increased sales by making it make more affordable to the aspirants who want to drive luxury cars but don’t want to do outright purchase.

The carmaker intends to buy back after the predefined period and sell it through its used car channel. The cars would be covered under warranty period during the resale.

The model is well proven in western world where the car markers and the car renting companies like Hertz, Rent-a-CAR offer the new fleet to the organizations and buy back to be sold as used cars.

BMW that has just overtaken Mercedes in sales is expected to further strengthen its market share.

Luxury car segments too cheer the auto sales numbers

Just as the Auto sales numbers for January have shown a very healthy growth ranging from 30% to 139%, the numbers form the luxury car segment has complemented to the momentum.

The number from BMW, VW, Volvo, Nissan, Land rover & Jaguar are yet to come for January 2010. In Calendar year 2009 BMW took over Mercedes as market leader with sales of 3619 cars against Mercedes sales of 3247 units.

The Indian luxury car that is growing at an aggressive 30% has primarily the business, trade, celebrities and executives of the popular service sector. The primary driving community that is visible on the road is the young kids of rich dads belonging to business, real estate, builders and traders that matches with the surveys done by the OEMs about the reduced age group are their buyers.

	2010	2009
Mercedes
sales	403	82
Audi
sales	306	109

picture - BMW 3 series

Mahindra Maxximo launched at 2.79lakh

Maxximo, the Mahindr’a answer for TATA ace in mini truck segment is launched at a Ex-Mumbai price tag of 2.79lakh. Maxximo was recently unveiled at Delhi Auto Expo 2010 comes with a 2 cylinder CRDe engine and 850 kg payload capacity.

The mini-truck segment has grown over 20% since last 3 years and with the ban on heavy cargo trucks being entered in to city limits not far from now, the small/mini truck market that takes the cargo inside the corporation limits is expected to really boost this segment.

The mini truck segment is dominated by TATA ace with about 90% share but expects to face tough competition with Maxximo, Mahindra’s own 500kg capacity Gio, Piaggio Ape.

Mahindra to start production of pickup line from the US

                                                                                                              

Mahindra certainly India’s one of the best automotive story in recent times with its consistent growth through organic way and acquisitions, JVs has come a long way in executing its plan to assemble the Scorpio based pickup in US.

After a series of delays due to the compliances and quality norms finally Mahindra has announced that in coming months it would start the production with Navistar, who’s partner for Mahindra Navistar brand of CV’s in India.

Mahindra also will launch new models in India that include Gio, Maxximo. These models were displayed in recently concluded AutoExpo 2010 at Delhi.

(Picture courtesy - Mahindra Ltd. )

Healthy Jan 2010 numbers acorss segments

The Jan 2010 Automobile Sales numbers looked quite upbeat. Except for Honda Motors that records mere 3% growth, majority have posted over 30% growths.

Much encouraging part of the result is the growth of CV segment that had affected in 208-2009 substantially due to the economic slowdown.

Historically Dec-Jan and Festival seasons have seen sales spurt due to the attractive offers by the dealers and it would be interesting to see the last quarter results in March.

	Jan-10	Jan-09
Hundai Motors
growth	41%
sales	52,635	37,371
domestic	29,601	16,155
export	23,034	16,155
Maruti suzuki
growth	33%
sales	95,649	71,779
domestic	81,087	67,005
exports	14,562	4,774
GM
growth	139%
sales	9,421	3,937
TATA motors
growth	77%
sales	65,478	36,931
cars growth	43.17%
sales	26,245	18,331
exports	3276	1,227
cvs	35,957	17,373
M&M
growth	67%
sales	28,988	17,320
CV growth	59%
CV sales	801	503
exports	1,161	291
Ashok Leyland
growth	101%
sales	16,129	8,011
Honda
growth	3.60%
Sales	5,983	5,733