Hyundai Xcent to get new base variant for taxi market Autocar India reports that Hyundai is planning to launch "a taxi special" variant of the Xcent soon.
This variant will be positioned below the current Base variant of Xcent, which is already being sold to fleet operators. It will get even less features compared to the Base variant, such as silver-painted wheels & hub caps (instead of black-painted ones with full wheel caps). Anti-lock Braking System (which is a standard feature on the Xcent) is also likely to be given a miss on the taxi variant, in order to make the car available to cab buyers at a very competitive price.
The mechanical package will remain unaltered and the variant will have two engines on offer - the 83 PS 4-cylinder 1197cc Kappa petrol & 72 PS 3-cylinder 1120 CRDi diesel. The petrol engine will be offered with a CNG kit to enable the Xcent taxi to be sold in cities that mandate the use of CNG for transport vehicles.
Pictured below is the current Base variant, with black (unpainted) ORVMs and door handles. The new variant is set to lose some features such as the full wheel caps pictured below ( image courtesy - RushLane):
I think Hyundai are determined to have a share of the pie in a rapidly expanding fleet segment (thanks to app-based aggregators like Uber & Ola). Maruti Suzuki have had tremendous success with the taxi special DZire Tour, which has eroded the share of traditional taxi operator favourites in the C1 sedan segment.
Along with the new taxi special variant of Xcent, I think they also need to position the old i10 (with a CNG/LPG kit) as an exclusive city cab, and discontinue sales to private buyers.
For private buyers, Grand i10 with the 1.0 litre Kappa petrol motor in more variants (this is available only in a single LPG+petrol dual fuel variant now) can fill the void created by exit of the old i10.
Last edited by RSR : 6th January 2016 at 19:54.
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