[MadAbtCars]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

Clarification sought: The chart says that the total number of premium cars sold in October, in India was 10. Does this mean that BMW, Audi, Mercedes, Toureg, Bentley etc all put together sold a total of 10 pieces in October. I am surprised how low that is. Could the more experienced BHPians clarify please. Thanks in advance for your trouble.

Even I raised the same question in this thread a while ago. My best guess is that the luxury brands namely Audi's , BMW's, Merc's etc are not considered for the purpose of reporting the monthly sales figures here on team-bhp. Either those data are not readily available or maybe for some other reason altogether. Some Mod / Senior Bhpian can put some light on this matter.

I am sure that with the inclusion of atleast Audi, BMW and Mercedes, the number of premium segment vehicles will surely go up

[zenren]

Originally Posted by kingofmyworld

Where is the stingray? Was it dropped from maruti's stable? Or is it combined with wagon-r's numbers?

Stingray is clubbed with Wagon R numbers.

Other similar examples I know of:

Alto 800 + Alto K10
Indica + Vista
Indigo + Manza
Liva + Etios Cross
Polo + Cross Polo
Fiesta + Classic
Punto + Evo + Avventura
Linea + Linea Classic
Safari + Storme

[Hvt77]

Originally Posted by StepUP!

Santro still going strong despite the news of production being stopped.

Maybe I am biased since I own it and it's my first car (in India at least), but I still feel Santro is the best hatch in its price segment. If only they had brought out face lifts, upgrades, even the AMT, Hyundai would have sold many more Santros than the i10 n grand i10 put together!

Listen up Hyundai!

[rattanw]

Originally Posted by The Alchemist

What are the alternative options we have instead of alto? Scooters/Motor bikes? Auto rickshaws? public transport?

Do you think any of the options mentioned above are better than 'alto'. The recent discussion about CAR safety in this forum is conveniently ignoring the ROAD safety requirement of a common man. India is a country with one of the lowest number of vehicles per capita (41 cars per 1000 - ranks at 129 internationally). Which means, majority of the population is relying on bikes, auto rickshaws, taxis, public transport etc for their daily commutes.

As you mentioned, more than 60% of car sales come from A, B1, B2 segments. Even in B1, B2 segments the lower end variants constitutes the major share. Cost is a major concern for us Indians.

When I decided to buy a car about 2 years ago, safety was an important concern for me, which meant I needed more money. Result? - The purchase was delayed by one more year. Was I any safer on my bike over that one year period?

So, no, we can not just root for banning alto and the likes. What we need is a choice for end customer to make an informed purchase. India should device a safety testing program, and all variants of all cars should carry the safety rating on the wind-shield. This should be mandated by law.

This will in turn force all car makers to build safer cars

Apologies for the off-topic discussion!

thats only half the facts. The other half is purely about numbers and the dismal safety features present in the choices available to Indian buyers today. Just a quick Google search would reveal this - of almost 230,000 deaths on Indian roads each year, 16% or 34,000 odd deaths occur in the 4 Wheeler category. A small improvement in this number and we are talking about thousands of lives saved. True, the number of people killed riding two / three wheelers is almost double the number above, but then that's a slightly more complicated problem.

Improving road conditions, road design, driver behavior and skills, etc are all long term measures. I mean realistically a program to improve road design and conditions will take 10 years to have any meaningful impact, if it is started in all earnest today, considering india has nearly 30 lac kms of roads network and is ranked only number two in the world. IMHO, more significant and better results can be had by other means. This is where regulations come in. If the only choice available to the buyers today is made safe, or at least relatively safe by law, can we not make more significant and faster improvements in road safety. If Alto, swift, i10 and the other cars have mandatory inclusion of air bags and ABS, will people stop buying or reduce buying. And since the laws will apply to all cars sold in India, really no one will have a reason to complain. In my opinion that's a quick fix to at least a major problem. By no means am I suggesting that other measures to improve road safety are not important, just that we should focus on quick wins first, while longer term measures can continue simultaneously.

Sorry for taking this of f topic.

[saion666]

Ciaz takes over the mighty City!!! Would be looking forward to this rat race in the coming months.

IMO the Celerio should sell nearly equal to the WagonR. It has the AMT advantage too!

GM can very well pack their bags and leave India with their Chinese cars.

[CrAzY dRiVeR]

Originally Posted by saion666

IMO the Celerio should sell nearly equal to the WagonR. It has the AMT advantage too!

WagonR will soon get the AMT box while Celerio will get the Diesel engine. So it's a win-win situation for MS.

[hrman]

Thanks Mods for the thread.

Say hello to the new bottom of the barrel in the Auto market- Skoda.
Great cars, bad, repeat bad A.S.S. I had a little accident with my Rapid on 26th Oct. Not yet received the car. Been about two weeks of constant followup, got to know the estimate only after 10 days..
Sigh.. Will rant on another thread. My next car will never be from the VW group.

As far as the month's figures go:
Ciaz seems to be setting the City's tail on fire. Similarly, Ertiga getting back from Mobilio. Honda needs to be less complacent.
Good to see the new I20 doing well.
Datsun may see their sales dipping after the NCAP episode.
I guess year end discounts will ring in to acquire as much sales of 2014 produced models as possible before the Calendar year end.

[CountMe91]

One interesting thing to note is that - the i10 1.1 iRDE2 is selling in an approx ~4k units per month. Reason being - more discounts, earlier design had a composed ride quality, reliability, slightly better mileage as compared to the 1.2 sibling.

Its good to see that the Wagon R is clocking a steady 14k per month. Addition of AMT would further eat into the customer base from Celerio AMT. But at the end of the day, the customer is a Maruti customer.

Further the addition of Alto k10 AMT spec would only shoot the sale of their best selling car.

It will be good to see how the sales chart of new Swift fares when the upgraded Jazz will be launched in the market. But with the quality concerns reported by recent Honda owners, I for myself will think twice before buying a Honda.

[lapis_lazuli]

FIAT: It has sold as much as their highest engine displacement : 1368! How I wish BOTH could be more....much more!

But this is good news: I have MANY colleagues who have booked the Evo! Some, even the previous gen leftovers. Glad to see the brand sell....more it sells, less worries for after sales support!

[Hayek]

Originally Posted by Samba

Over a month back i was stuck in traffic-jam and took a pic of the long traffic jam. Later when i saw the pic in my laptop it simply looked like a Maruti Stock Yard with Dzire's and Swift's dominating the road. No wonder India rolls on Maruti

Plus i highly doubt whether the safety ratings of the Swift will hardly affect its sales!

Incredible how India varies from place to place. Where I live and work, the 3 Series is certainly more common than the Alto. Swifts are around, but few and far between.

Originally Posted by CoolCarNi

2) Surprised to see Omni and Eeco in top 20. Does the market value cost consciousness over safety and features?



5) Only 1 TATA vehicle in top 20 (zest). Is it because of the novelty factor of a newly launched vehicle? Bleak future for TATA??

Originally Posted by The Alchemist

Omni + Eeco ~10000

!

Just demonstrates the priorities of the Indian car buyer. 6000 Omnis!!!! That vehicle was unsafe and out of date in 1985. But in a country where people use Jugaads and 6 seater 3 wheelers with 15 people in them as public transport, what do you expect.

Even more incredible is 20000+ Altos. I tried out an Alto in 2004, and found it cramped even compared to the Zen I then had. I thought it was a terrible car. And it keeps on selling. And amazingly, it is safer than a brand new Datsun Go. Who would have imagined that!!

And the Datsun Go sells more than the Skoda Rapid, which is a fantastically well engineered car. Wonder if this data is post the launch of the Rapid TDi DSG or not? Usually, you get dealer shipments in the month of launch. But the way VW works, you never know - they could have taken a shutdown to tool up for the new car after launching it.

Personally, am impressed with the Zest - it seems to be doing well, and perhaps demonstrates that better days are ahead for Tata Motors.

[tbppjpr]

Originally Posted by Hayek

Personally, am impressed with the Zest - it seems to be doing well, and perhaps demonstrates that better days are ahead for Tata Motors.

And I got more impressed after seeing their Pune crash testing facility in act in a TV program:

http://auto.ndtv.com/cnb-bazaar-buzz...-safety-339443

Now I feel its the Tata which deserve number one place in India for their constant efforts in improving the products, not the Maruti.

Are the frustrating quality control policies which are responsible behind Mr. Mayan Pareek's resignation form Maruti joining in Tata motors for their constant innovative efforts?

[ajmat]

Lets looks at sales from a platform perspective

Assuming 3000 units per month is breakeven and 5000+ is a healthy profit. Lets see what we get



Maruti - purely on the Swift derivatives - Ertiga, Swift, Ritz, D'zire sells 38000 units.
Hyundai - Eon till i20 sell 32000 units

This means economies of scale leads to competitive pricing that leads to good profit and also happy dealers

Honda - the Brio/Amaze /Mobilio produces 8000 units, a decent profit, remember the Mobilio sales were low this month but if Honda can expand capacity, the can do well. The premium pricing means a good profit.

Tata - The poor Aria and Nano sales hide the fact that the Indica derived platform sells well. The new Zest accounts for half of the sames. Imagine when the Bolt comes on line

Ford - EcoSport/Fiesta - This is 90% skewed towards the EcoSport. I hate to think if Renault cut prices of the Duster or Maruti come out with a suitable rival. Remember EcoSport demand in Europe ain't so great.

Vw Vento/Rapid/Polo - 5500. VW can heave a sigh of relief but how long will this last. VW dealers might be happy but volumes may not be enough for Skoda dealers

Renault Duster/ Terrano - This has saved the Renault/Nissan Alliance with 4955 units. However, things are on a knife edge since exports have stopped

Nissan Sunny/Scala - 506 - How do they make money?

Nissan Micra/Pulse/ GO - 2341 - Luckily most of the Micra is exported but this will change in a couple of years. The next Micra better be good. A lot hinges on Renaults small car

[zenren]

Originally Posted by tbppjpr

And I got more impressed after seeing their Pune crash testing facility in act in a TV program:

http://auto.ndtv.com/cnb-bazaar-buzz...-safety-339443

Now I feel its the Tata which deserve number one place in India for their constant efforts in improving the products, not the Maruti.

Impressive facilities at Tata Motors, which could very well help them once the new safety regulations come into force here to keep up with others. I had heard of this but never knew it was inaugurated in 1997. That means before the V1 launch of Indica, let alone Tata. This makes me wonder if they were really leveraging these facilities in the past, considering the crash test results of Nano and Indica/City Rover.

Zest seems to a new era. However, even in that video of the test, am I seeing a slightly deformed A-pillar? Check the gap between the driver door and the A pillar after the crash. Though the speed of the test is not mentioned, these facilities are of no use if they don't plan to reinforce safety into their designs based on the data collected from these tests. I hope they can react faster to provide safe cars to the Indians than others - Tata group in general had a much better outlook towards social commitment historically than others who are here just to make profits. At this point, they are purely running on survival instinct but once the market accepts them, I hope they'll turn a new leaf.

Maruti may not have such a facility here, but they would certainly have one in Suzuki HQ in Japan where the European models come from. Again, all Maruti cars are practically designed in Japan and hence would be tested at the crash test facility there for the European export. Same would be the case with all other foreign manufacturers. For all these players, it is not due to lack of facilities that we get unsafe cars; it is just because they chose to do so. Period.

The only question is about Mahindra. Where are they testing their cars, if they are doing it?

[i10]

Whoever came up with those Santro production is being stopped stories - what do they have to say about the i10? Santro (3348) beat the i10 (3152) hollow in sales! No promotion whatsoever. Phenomenal for a non-Maruti.

[neethi_raj]

Rapid/Vento numbers don't seem to be good even after the DSG launch. Accept it's a niche market and customers are wary of the DSG. Still, just for the fact that these are the only decent diesel auto in their segment, they deserve to sell more.