[Harshal.Bhosale]

Originally Posted by Skyline GT-R

Kindly read "The Nissan Way" by Carlos Ghosn. It is a really interesting book, must read for auto enthusiasts.

Thanks. Will try to get my hands on a copy asap.

Originally Posted by Skyline GT-R

Renault did the hard work of pumping money to Nissan & at present owns majority shares of Nissan. If Renault was not there to fund Nissan, it would have shut shop about 10 years back.

Well yes, the dice are ultimately rolled by the money aspect, agree. But what I meant by 'hard work' was just from the designing point of view. Agree, in an industry, its not all about the engineering part (fairly obvious), but then it seems unfair on our part (we the consumers) that we have to choose between two variations of essentially the same car. That's all I'm asking for - authentic variety in the car lineups.

And ultimately, lets face it, whatever the managerial prowess of Mr Ghosn may be, Renault isn't considered a great car designer. Sure, the French may know the aesthetics of car design, but mechanicals, well, their neighbours (die Deutschen) do it better!

[karan561]

Originally Posted by aaggoswami

If there is one another culture which others have followed, its selling different generations of same model sharing showroom floor. Santro, i10, Accent, Verna, M800, AltoK10, Alto 800, A-star are good examples of this.

Oh yes this culture too exists, very interesting point !

Also the Octavia & Laura another example & speculation says in 2013 the Octavia brand may by re-born. What will happen to the Laura then

[motorworks]

The thread title and content is not something that i would actually expect in team-bhp!
I mean, what is this "monkey" business you seem to be talking about? Markets evolve over a period of time and manufacturers adapt to the changing market conditions all the while! If you think all manufacturers are queuing up to launch compact SUVs like the duster or the ecosport or even the quanto it is because our market has evolved off late to accept such products which would have been duds years ago.
And manufacturers just do not launch products just because others do so, they only do it if they believe that their product has saleability. You mention fiat 500L, its such a niche product, nothing to do with compact SUVs as such! It is just a longer wheelbase 500 for specific markets!
Secondly, about this under 4 meter cars, this is actually a not-so-great policy from the government, to control excise duty subsidies. Manufacturers havd no option to work around this policy, so what's wrong mate? If the new dzire CS is selling at 17k cars every month, doesnt it mean they got something right?
Make no mistake, indian market is one of the most complex ones around, where biggies like Ford, GM, Fiat, have struggled for years without the right products. Hence this is no monkey business sir! Manufacturers have to really work hard to get a product right no matter what!

[karan561]

Originally Posted by motorworks

The thread title and content is not something that i would actually expect in team-bhp!
I mean, what is this "monkey" business you seem to be talking about? Markets evolve over a period of time and manufacturers adapt to the changing market conditions all the while! If you think all manufacturers are queuing up to launch compact SUVs like the duster or the ecosport or even the quanto it is because our market has evolved off late to accept such products which would have been duds years ago.
And manufacturers just do not launch products just because others do so, they only do it if they believe that their product has saleability. You mention fiat 500L, its such a niche product, nothing to do with compact SUVs as such! It is just a longer wheelbase 500 for specific markets!
Secondly, about this under 4 meter cars, this is actually a not-so-great policy from the government, to control excise duty subsidies. Manufacturers havd no option to work around this policy, so what's wrong mate? If the new dzire CS is selling at 17k cars every month, doesnt it mean they got something right?
Make no mistake, indian market is one of the most complex ones around, where biggies like Ford, GM, Fiat, have struggled for years without the right products. Hence this is no monkey business sir! Manufacturers have to really work hard to get a product right no matter what!

As far as the thread title goes, " monkey culture " is not derogatory at all. In fact it is a management case study if you search on the web.

Copying products / adapting / taking leverage on someone elz's success is all the same.

As far as Fiat 500L goes it is a product already in the global scene & yes so FIAT doesnt need to re-create another product. ( this example was used to mention the trend)

But what about the products like Brio Sedan ? Brio based Ertiga rival ? Verito CS ? Aria CS (under development) & more mentioned earlier

& when did i say there is any thing wrong in doing this that you are saying

" Ford, GM, Fiat, have struggled for years without the right products. Hence this is no monkey business sir! Manufacturers have to really work hard to get a product right no matter what! "

^ it is just my observation , & its fair because its business after all

[motorworks]

Originally Posted by karan561

As far as the thread title goes, " monkey culture " is not derogatory at all. In fact it is a management case study if you search on the web.

Copying products / adapting / taking leverage on someone elz's success is all the same.

As far as Fiat 500L goes it is a product already in the global scene.

But what about the products like Brio Sedan ? Brio based Ertiga rival ? & more mentioned earlier

& when did i say there is any thing wrong in doing this that you are saying

" Ford, GM, Fiat, have struggled for years without the right products. Hence this is no monkey business sir! Manufacturers have to really work hard to get a product right no matter what! "

^ it is just my observation , & its fair because its business after all

You see, Im not sure what's your point actually! Manufacturers whether Auto or of any other FMCG product are always trying to innovate and work around policies set by the government or based on the culture of the country. For example, most luxury cars sold in China have a longer wheel base, like the Audi A8 L or even some BMWs / Jaguars etc. Does it mean that auto companies are copying each other? No, they are just trying to provide what the customer wants! And as for the brio based sedan, ertiga rival etc, dont you think when a company builds a chasiss, they foresee what variations they could do with it? It is a common practice to build multiple cars on a single platform purely for efficiency. They just dont say lets build a platform for a hatchback and thats it! No, not all!
The first one to do this Hatch / sedan thing in India, if Im right, was Fiat when it did the Sienna / Palio and both were disasters, although the palio had a reasonable fan following. By your logic then no one should have attempted this again? But Tata did it, not because of what Fiat did, but its a global norm to make multiple products using the same platform to cater to different set of customers. You see today's smart phones, all on android, all using similar processors, almost similar specs, and at times from the same vendor! Are they in this so called "monkey business" as well? Well by your logic they are!

[handsofsteel]

Originally Posted by torquing_points

Yep. Corsa Swing. Fiat also had one cant remember the name.

it was fiat palio<fiat siena(petra)< fiat adventure
by the way, anyone remember baleno and altura?
even skkoda octavia and combi (i think thats what it was called),
tata sierra and tata estate? would it also fit in in this analogy?

[karan561]

Originally Posted by handsofsteel

it was fiat palio<fiat siena(petra)< fiat adventure
by the way, anyone remember baleno and altura?
even skkoda octavia and combi (i think thats what it was called),
would it also fit in in this analogy?

These wont fit here as they already existed in the global market. And there have been many sedan to estate conversions since years.

[karan561]

Just to give an example of what is NOT exactly monkey culture is the latest Skoda (under development) called the POLAR ;



^ The above pic is just a rendering

This SUV is going to launch probably by 2015, aimed at Duster & segment below the Yeti

I say this as it is not monkey culture in the above case just because this is an "all new" development though is loosely based on the MQB platform.
It would have classified as monkey culture if a Fabia/Rapid would be taken & made a SUV out of it.

[karan561]

VW Developing a sub 4m Vento variant for the Indian market.

http://www.autocarindia.com/News/335...tre-vento.aspx

^ Another example of 'Monkey Culture'

[esteem_lover]

Originally Posted by torquing_points

Yep. Corsa Swing. Fiat also had one cant remember the name.

Fiat Palio, Sienna and the Sienna Weekend (Estate), later it was Adventure

Tatamobile, Tata Estate

Even the Amby, Standard 10(pennant) and the Padmini had estate models, can't recall the names though.

This is surely not Monkey Culture, it is just Indian Car Culture.

[pganapathy]

Originally Posted by Harshal.Bhosale

Platform-sharing among different brands is another way we, the customers, are being shortchanged. Consider Micra-Pulse and Sunny-Scala - Nissan does all the hard work of developing the car, and then Renault, being its parntner, gets to rob away all their effort and part of their market share. Same is the case with the Vento-Rapid, except here the parent company ageees to let Skoda get away with it.

Nissan or VW don't really care whether you buy a Nissan or a Renault or in VW's case a skoda or seat or vw or audi, as long as you buy something from their group of cars. The money and profit goes to the same people in the end.

Given this, platform sharing makes the most sense for companies as they can cut production cost, design new models quickly by changing the body shell only and realise economies of scale. From a business perspective what is not to like.

As clients we may not like it when we know but does it really matter when we don't. After all if platform sharing means a well sorted and problem free chassis, wouldn't we be happy

[Marauder]

Originally Posted by motorworks

The thread title and content is not something that i would actually expect in team-bhp!
I mean, what is this "monkey" business you seem to be talking about? Markets evolve over a period of time and manufacturers adapt to the changing market conditions all the while! If you think all manufacturers are queuing up to launch compact SUVs like the duster or the ecosport or even the quanto it is because our market has evolved off late to accept such products which would have been duds years ago.
And manufacturers just do not launch products just because others do so, they only do it if they believe that their product has saleability. You mention fiat 500L, its such a niche product, nothing to do with compact SUVs as such! It is just a longer wheelbase 500 for specific markets!
Secondly, about this under 4 meter cars, this is actually a not-so-great policy from the government, to control excise duty subsidies. Manufacturers havd no option to work around this policy, so what's wrong mate? If the new dzire CS is selling at 17k cars every month, doesnt it mean they got something right?
Make no mistake, indian market is one of the most complex ones around, where biggies like Ford, GM, Fiat, have struggled for years without the right products. Hence this is no monkey business sir! Manufacturers have to really work hard to get a product right no matter what!

Different markets have different demands and manufacturers evolve to develop products designed for those markets.
If you look at the Chinese market almost all cars have LWB versions or longer cars compared to other markets because the customers want those cars.
Americans want big muscle cars,Brazil has rugged,SUV-ish versions of hatchbacks galore.
Since when is platform sharing called monkey-business and how is this prevalent only in Indian automobile industry?
Honda did not develop diesel cars for India and they were called stubborn and lazy,now they have made a diesel compact sedan which the Indian market demands and they are called monkeys
This picture depicts our society perfectly.
http://i.imgur.com/XN02o.jpg