11 posts tagged “small-cars”

Both Hyundai and Ford will soon have new small cars in the Indian car market. When Hyundai is concentrating more on the pricing of the car Ford is trying to emphasize more on the factor that theirs is a small car.

Hyundai had already announced its idea of a small car from the company that is priced less will be a good choice for the common man, something like Tata Nano. This new low-priced car is expected to be launched. It is expected to be an 800cc new model car and will be rolled out from the Hyundai plant in Chennai. It will be priced at Rs. 1.77 lakh, not as low priced as Nano though, will be competing against Maruti 800 and Tata Nano. Thought the launch date is not announced, it will is expected to be launched soon.

The Ford small car, codenamed B517 is expected to be unveiled this month and will be available in the car market by March 2010. Available in a 1.4-litre Duratorq engine, similar to that found in Ford Fiesta and Ikon, it will have both petrol and diesel variants. The B517 will be also exported to other Asian–Pacific and Asian countries.

The long wait for Honda Jazz finally comes to an end, Honda Jazz was launched today bidding farewell to all assumptions and speculations.  India has become a favorite platform for many major automobile manufacturers, and most of the major companies are trying their luck in India in 2009 by launching a new car every fortnight. Honda Jazz is Honda’s new addition to its already existing successful range of cars.

The Jazz is Honda’s first attempt at entering the small car market in India and so the success of the new model is very important to the car manufacturer. So far, Honda has been extremely successful with its sedans and SUVs but has completely missed out on the lucrative small car market. The Jazz is a start for Honda.

The Jazz comes in three variants – Mode, Basic, and Active.  All the three variants have standard safety features. Price differs for the three variants. The Jazz Basic is priced at Rs 6.98 Lakh. The Jazz Mode is priced at Rs 7.28 Lakh and is build especially for family purposes. The Jazz Active is the sporty variant with sport pedals, fog lamps, body coloured front grille, and a smart spoiler at the top of the tailgate and carries a price tag of Rs 7.33 Lakh. The car has great looks and is all equipped to impress any buyer. The Jazz offers good fuel efficiency and will be best suited for the Indian road conditions. To back it up, Honda has a brand name that has always made high-performance, quality cars.

Though the Jazz comes in as the most spacious hatchback, it will not be easy competing with established models such as Hyundai i20, Skoda Fabia, and Maruti Suzuki Ritz.

Maruti Suzuki entered the Indian car market with its legendary Maruti 800. They have excelled in the small cars segment and the successful models like Maruti Suzuki Alto, Maruti Suzuki WagonR, and Maruti Suzuki Swift are the best example of the great endeavours the company has made in small car segment.

 

Following the trend of small car, Suzuki plans to create small and compact fuel-efficient cars for India. The car major believes that fuel-efficient cars from the small segment will be a great success in the Indian car market. In a country like India where there is huge traffic and parking cars is a big problem. Such kind of small cars cater to great help for the buyers.

 

Suzuki is doing various studies on the most effective engine technology that can be fitted in small cars whereas Maruti is concentrating on the design factor that would be best suited small cars exclusively for India.

Every car manufacturer promotes their products in an attractive way and Hyundai always offers it customers in a unique way. The car manufacturer is offering special discounts of up to Rs 31,000 on some of its cars especially for government employees. It is aiming to cash in on the higher salaries and arrears under the Sixth Pay Commission.

This scheme is offered only for the month of October and November and will be for both state and central government employees. During the festive season, this will be an added incentive for the employees to buy a Hyundai car.

However this is offered considering the fact that the government employees are due to receive the arrears after revision in the Sixth Pay Commission. These arrears can be used to make a down payment for purchase of the car. Moreover, the revised salary increment can be utilized to help them to pay in monthly installments.

The cars that would be offered discount are Santro, i10, Getz, Accent, and Verna.

In addition, Hyundai is tied up with Axis Bank, State Bank of India and HDFC Bank to lure finance schemes to the government employees.

Small cars are gaining huge popularity in Indian market. The car manufacturers have understood this and are now rolling out more small cars in the country. Even Volkswagen is all set to launch its small car in India soon.

The small car would come packed with local flavour as the German car manufacturer plans a high degree of indigenization for its volume car. So this would be the first ever car that would enter the compact car segment.

The small car will enter the Indian market around 2010 and the same will be manufactured at Volkswagen upcoming manufacturing plant at Chakan in Maharashtra. The company feels that high level of local content will not only lessen the production cost of the car, but will also help preserving costs with the spare parts. 

The company is planning to invest around Rs 3600 crore in setting up the manufacturing facility at Chakan. The production in this unit will start from 2009 end. Also the manufacturing plant will be used partially for the production of Skoda's hatchback Fabia.

Many car manufacturers are realizing what the buyers are looking for and are going according to their choice.

Hyundai i10 was launched in the year 2007 and till date it has made remarkable sales in the market. The demand for the hatchback is increasing massively in domestic as well as overseas market. The car manufacturer has opened a third shift in their plant in south India to meet the growing demand for this compact car.

Hyundai is all set to make India a manufacturing hub for small cars. Till now the i10 has been sold more than 172,000 units in the country.

The company wants to make a noteworthy place in the Indian market. There are also a series of new launches like i20 to be launched by the end of this year and i30 and i40 would be launched in the coming months.

The thirst for i10 is increasing day after day and this is the best way to satisfy the customers by increasing the production of this exciting car.

Finally Nano ready to be launched by October end this year. The cheap car Nano is set to roll out with its three petrol variants in the Indian market and is named as standard, deluxe and luxury.

 

The luxury variant comes packed with a range of attractive features like HVAC, front and rear fog lamps, power window, central locking, tinted glasses, extended reflector, and instrument cluster with trip meter. It also has some existing features like body-colour bumper and door handles, door lock on the co-driver side, and slider with recliner, 3-spoke steering wheel and double stalk comb switch. The deluxe version will only have HVAC and tinted windows.

 

The basic variant will be priced at Rs 1 lakh. The deluxe and luxury variants will be priced an extra of Rs 20,000-30,000.

However the diesel variant of Nano will be launched next year and will also have three variants.

India is becoming popular for small cars and many car manufacturers are geared up to introduce small cars. Moreover, Renault is now set to launch low-cost cars. It has chosen India to offer a bigger role in designing and developing its ultra low-cost car.

 

The design hub will develop all its new products in Mumbai, the design centres across the world would work at it, and Paris would take a final call.

 

For the first time Renault is developing an ultra low-cost car in India. Mumbai’s design centre will provide the main design framework, with other design centers’ across the world providing smaller inputs for the ULC.

 

However, a team of 10-12 Indian designers is working on the small car project. The design centre is set to be inaugurated on September. Small and cheap cars are gaining a lot of popularity in the country and many car manufacturers have understood what Indians are looking for and are working for the same.

The thirst of small cars is increasing tremendously in both the Indian market as well as global markets. Now the government is also lending a helping hand to the Indian car manufacturers by extending Focus Market Scheme (FMS) incentives. Here the automobiles are exported to targeted markets will get cash-incentives of up to 5%.

 

The worldwide market is likely to increase to 83 countries that will be covered under FMS. Basically, this scheme is set up to aid Indian car manufacturers to conquer a larger portion of the growing markets in Latin America, Africa and the CIS bloc and build India a global hub for small cars. 

The new policy is taken up by the Government chiefly to help the manufacturers in gratifying the demands for smaller and fuel-efficient cars in the world markets.

 

India’s largest car manufacturer, Maruti Suzuki plans to tap the market with its most eagerly waiting hatchback, the A-Star. Whereas Hyundai plans to export its most popular i10 to the US.

 

In the recent years, GPS is becoming trendy in cars. Many of the luxury cars have this feature as a standard one. Now India’s major car player Ford India is also set to include GPS navigation device to its popular SUV, Ford Endeavour.

 

The company has proclaimed that MapmyIndia is its partner to sell the navigator device.

MapmyIndia is India’s leading manufacturer in premium-quality digital maps and consumer navigation services.

 

The navigation device will be offered as a brand new accessory feature which is currently available at all the authorized Ford dealerships in India. However the navigation system can also be integrated on all other Ford vehicles like Ford Ikon, Fusion, Fiesta and the Endeavour.

 

The navigator provides exceptional and ultimate coverage of 174 cities, which is up from previous 18 cities. MapmyIndia wants to broaden its services across India and persists to pioneer more Indian consumers to the benefits of GPS navigation.