[anu21v]

Originally Posted by RavenAvi

Posted on 14th July. My birdie got it spot-on almost 6 weeks back!

I believe this is excellent pricing to start Kia's initial fight against the well-settled brands with a bang. All they need to do now is meet the demands of the pre-bookers ASAP and they have a huge hit in their hands.

Trustworthy insider contact.

[PrasannaDhana]

Originally Posted by Reinhard

Man how tall are you?

Hahaha, I am just a 6'2. It must be the angle, also Seltos is not a big car.(atleast when taking my storme into account)

[AtheK]

Seeing where the pricing is heading with all the new launches, I guess i am very happy holding on to my 3.5 year old vento TSI for next four years. Yes it might not have some creature comforts of the new car, but it's all we need for our family of three. Going forward also I think I will probably take the route of pre owned. I will anyday prefer to pick a year or two old Octavia over any of these new cars.

[dadu]

Originally Posted by PrasannaDhana

Hahaha, I am just a 6'2. It must be the angle, also Seltos is not a big car.(atleast when taking my storme into account)

I just stopped short of quoting it, once you have driven a safari everything else falls short on your expectations, especially the cabin space, stance and driving position.

[suchit23]

Originally Posted by Reinhard

Good one. Thanks for this.

If Autocar doesn't remove the Duster from such lists - there are going to be jokes & memes about ACI going viral on Twitter & whatsapp for this insistance on including a Duster in comparisons.

And why would that be? Duster is a compact/midsize SUV > 4m. Where else would it fit in the current market?

This graph is a good one and puts all the cars in perspective.

Originally Posted by Jaggu

This is my personal opinion, and I feel one of the reason why auto industry will continue to suffer more.

Totally agree to this. The auto industry only has themselves to blame for the state they are in. A hatch which should cost 6 has gone up to 11 and a car like Seltos should at max be 13 on road. I hope they learn now at least.

[Reinhard]

Originally Posted by suchit23

Where else would it fit in the current market?

This graph is a good one and puts all the cars in perspective.

Thats what I meant to say. It doesn't fit in the market anymore. Its days are gone. Its about time its taken out of these charts.

Stonker of a car for its times & wonderful performer on bad roads no doubt. But too old, too cheaply built interiors - especially in India where many components are Alto grade. And horribly over priced for this non premium package.

Its joke to compare the Hectors, Harriers, Cretas and the Seltoses to a Duster. Not anymore with the old generation surely. If it was the current gen Euro Spec Duster - then maybe.

[naveen.raju]

So looks like it's going to be around 18-19L on road for the top end. Something that I expected. Compared to the Creta, it's well priced and I wouldn't be surprised to see many potential Creta customers moving to Seltos when it's packed with more features.

Reality check - The top end is a bit over priced IMO. I felt the Creta was 1L more expensive when I bought it 4 years back. And now, the prices are .

[Brishti]

GTX price is 1.5lac more than I was expecting, at 15lac its 30-40% less than my orignal love "Compass" which brings up the question wait another 3 months and hunt for a 2019 compass?

[i74js]

Originally Posted by Shivaji

The HTX IVT is priced at 13.79L What will be the onroad price in Chennai? Anyone knows?

About 17 Lac (including TCS)

[ani_meher]

Originally Posted by GrammarNazi

Btw, HTE V/s HTK : Difference in G1.5 is ₹30k & in D1.5 it is ₹120k. I didn't understand why this stark pricing differential when the feature additions would be same. Or am I missing something?

I too have the same question. It is similar in Creta too. I think this is why there are many diesel buyers for base version, since it is an absolute value as compared to any other variant.

Originally Posted by tarik.arora

One thing worth noting is the petrol to diesel price gap which is still in the traditional 1 lakh range, even though both engines are BS-VI compliant. This is a very strong message for Maruti which made us believe that this difference will expand to almost 2lacs upon BS-VI intro. Was Maruti taking everyone for a ride or they are grossly misinformed and unaware.

I agree. Seeing the regular price difference in BSVI petrol & diesel engines makes me suspicious of Maruti's claim of 1.5-2 Lakh difference. Or maybe their 1.3L engine is so old that it requires too many changes to become BSVI, bumping up its price by 1.5-2L. Perhaps the new 1.5L may not require such a drastic expense.

[bigron]

What the Seltos has going for it is the newness, the excitement of getting something that has not been seen before from a brand just starting. The fact that it looks good also helps.

Initially, these two things will help it pull in the crowd.

[advenk999]

Originally Posted by Shivaji

The HTX IVT is priced at 13.79L What will be the onroad price in Chennai? Anyone knows?

This will translate to 16.5L-17L on road.

[Guna]

Originally Posted by Jaggu

This is my personal opinion, and I feel one of the reason why auto industry will continue to suffer more. Over the years every manufacturer has slowly and silently increased model pricing, making them move towards the next segment.

Surprisingly this steep price hike hasn't affected the entry levels cars much.
I remember paying 3.5 lacs for my Matiz in year 2000 and now a comparable car like a Kwid or Celerio costs only about 30% more (much less than the rate at which the Rupee has depreciated)
But take cars like the CRV or Endeavor which costed 15 lacs in 2005 are costing 250-300% more now.

Originally Posted by Jaggu

I had a brief drive of the petrol turbo DCT model, and I would rate it as Ecosport + better interiors + Space + lil gizmos and - (Minus) the solid feel of the ford. I would not pay 20-22 lakh for such a car. Rather look at a preowned next segment SUV at that price.

I agree. 22 lakh can get a Tuscon in almost new condition or a 3 year old Santa Fe.

[Pulse500]

Originally Posted by Karthik Chandra

This is how Seltos stacks up against its competitors.

I felt Seltos is overpriced. If I have to pick which variant is most value offering among others in relative terms, it would be the Diesel entry level D1.5-HTE.

I will give some hints on why I felt it is overpriced.

1. Kia is a new brand to India with completely different manufacturing facility, sales and service channels and possibly also the supplier base. It's not Hyundai although their parents are related. Not a single car from the brand is on Indian roads yet, no reliable information about on road performance, reliability and TCO is known. Spares are not yet available in market and the resale value is uncertain. Sorting out initial niggles, fine tuning everything, and establishing customer confidence and reputation takes time and effort.

2. Price differential is not proportional to the features. I am relying on this feature list here, as I still have not seen the official brochure yet.
https://www.autocarindia.com/car-new...plained-413868

3. Engine specs in terms of Power and Torque for 1.5 P/D engines are comparable to Tata Nexon, which is a segment below (Some many not like the comparison). Seltos is 30cm longer than Nexon and also has longer wheelbase but is less wider and has much less ground clearance. Seltos is smaller than the cars in the segment above i.e. likes of XUV500/Harrier/Hector, which also have a much powerful motor than Seltos.

4. Feature list: In terms of value, Seltos's features for specific variant are comparable to features of Nexon with one variant above, barring crash ratings and difference between AMT vs Torque Converters and a few electronic gizmos. Please do note that cost of Electronics follow Moore's law so always declining with time although cars have a lot of additional items other than plain electronics or software to enable a feature (e.g. additional wires, sensors, actuators) costs of which do not necessarily follow the same path as electronic hardware.

5. Warranty: 3 years.

Considering these and the recession in Auto industry, I was expecting introductory prices for Seltos to be between ~8.5 lakhs (P) to to ~13.3 Lakhs (top end models) for first 35K cars, and increase prices by ~30K for the next lot. Or included a 5 year warranty for prices between ~8.75 to 13.5 lakhs. Premium prices at launch reduces demand and will protect interests of the competition. Remember how Yaris failed, although it came from a well established brand?

[i74js]

Slightly OT; but it seems that FCA will continue to play the role of national engine supplier in the country.

JEEP Diesel - In-house engine
Tata Harrier - Sourced from FIAT
MG Hector - Sourced from FIAT

I have heard from a close friend that TML is finding it difficult to justify the cost of converting Varicor to BS VI and are toying with the idea of replacing it with FIAT. If it is approved, Hexa and beloved Safari both might be running on FIAT engines.

And if rumors are to be believed, even MSIL might consider offering Grand Vitara Diesel (for Indian market this time around) through the use of BS VI FIAT engine.

There will be two lovely engines with major play in the Indian market (BS VI)

- KIA / HYUNDAI 1.5 Litre Diesel
- FIAT 2.0 Litre Diesel

Others who may follow would be the recently developed 1.5 DDIS by Maruti; VW 1.5 Litre and M & M diesel mill. It would be difficult for Toyota to stay out but so far there are no confirmed reports. Similarly there is no news from Ford camp too (but its possible for them to fall back on M & M).