[pgsagar]

Originally Posted by FourWheelDrift

I am not surprised that Kotak are now producing studies tom-toming how individual / private car ownership is making a comeback.

Please give an honest reply. Will you board a city bus yourself? Or, go to a crowded mall or a theatre or a bar/restaurant? Tom-tomming or no tom-tomming, Kotak or no kotak, people will be wary of public transport and other crowded places for a looong time.

Small cars may be in good demand. Anyone who can afford one would buy one. Better the hassle of driving/parking than the risk of virus. On the other hand, those already having cars and who have been planning on upgrades would hang on to their cars. When the dust settles on this pandemic, they have other priorities to attend to. Like deals, projects, commitments stuck half-way. A bigger or newer car can wait. So, it will be a mixed bag. Smaller cars may see some spurt in sales while mid to upper tier ones may slow down a bit.

[Brishti]

This is true and its a reason why I just bought a KIA Seltos. I have just paid the amount and the loan from HDFC has been processed and it will be delivered on Monday "Home delivery".

The car will be sanitized but I am planning not to touch the car for 3 days and then resanitize it's inside using the Autocar Guide. This car is mainly for home and I bought it now to buffer the family while they get anything.

[FourWheelDrift]

Originally Posted by pgsagar

Please give an honest reply. Will you board a city bus yourself? Or, go to a crowded mall or a theatre or a bar/restaurant? Tom-tomming or no tom-tomming, Kotak or no kotak, people will be wary of public transport and other crowded places for a looong time.

Small cars may be in good demand. Anyone who can afford one would buy one. Better the hassle of driving/parking than the risk of virus. On the other hand, those already having cars and who have been planning on upgrades would hang on to their cars. When the dust settles on this pandemic, they have other priorities to attend to. Like deals, projects, commitments stuck half-way. A bigger or newer car can wait. So, it will be a mixed bag. Smaller cars may see some spurt in sales while mid to upper tier ones may slow down a bit.

Here's my honest reply, pgsagar :

I own a car and use it to drive to work every day. As do many of my colleagues, who have their own cars and can afford to drive every day.

However, I speak to a lot of colleagues at work, a majority of whom use different forms of public transport to come to work.

Whoever can afford it, but cannot afford to either drive their car to work daily or even own a car, takes a cab of some sort.

Those who can't afford a cab, take a CityFlow / private bus.

Those that don't have much of a choice, take trains and BEST buses too.

So, in short, the affordability factor plays a huge role in a person's transportation choice. I don't see affordability changing any time soon.

I fully expect in the long run, when we are well passed this situation, that people will go back to using the form of transport they can afford.

I don't see a lot more people moving away from different forms of shared mobility or public transport, and into personal cars, only because of this virus situation. Because people's memories are short.

I trust it's ok on this forum to have a different point of view and opinion than Kotak ... and other forum members.

Cheers,

FourWheelDrift

[pgsagar]

Originally Posted by FourWheelDrift

I don't see a lot more people moving away from different forms of shared mobility or public transport, and into personal cars, only because of this virus situation. Because people's memories are short.

I trust it's ok on this forum to have a different point of view and opinion than Kotak ... and other forum members.

FourWheelDrift

Not trying to get into an argument here but , "only because of virus"? There is this lady in our town who reportedly jumped out of her balcony in a suicide bid when she suspected herself to be covid-positive. People are that paranoid right now. Virus is all everyone is talking about right now. People will have to have nerves of steel to board a crowded bus right now.

I'm neither a Kotak executive nor a car dealer. I'm not taking cognizance of kotak or any other such report. Merely narrating current scenario. But, I agree with you on one thing though. Once this covid is all gone, people will board buses, visit malls etc. like covid thing never happened here.

BTW, you have not yet answered a simple question I asked you in the very opening line. Would you board a bus yourself, right after the lockdown is lifted?

[FourWheelDrift]

Originally Posted by pgsagar

Not trying to get into an argument here but , "only because of virus"? There is this lady in our town who reportedly jumped out of her balcony in a suicide bid when she suspected herself to be covid-positive. People are that paranoid right now. Virus is all everyone is talking about right now. People will have to have nerves of steel to board a crowded bus right now.

While everyone is talking about the virus, and most people are worried, taking the extreme step is thankfully an exception only. Exceptions cannot be used to make generalisations.

Originally Posted by pgsagar

BTW, you have not yet answered a simple question I asked you in the very opening line. Would you board a bus yourself, right after the lockdown is lifted?

The last time I took a bus was when I was in college, which was a long, long time back in the last century. The last time I took a train was probably the same time frame.

I travel everywhere by either cab or car. Even long distances of several hundred km. Or several thousand miles in other countries. This is my personal choice, because i enjoy being behind the wheel and the freedom that a car gives me.

But this isn't about me. I am not representative of the vast majority of Indians.

Neither are we on team-bhp, for that matter. We are a small minority of car crazy people who have chosen to band together on a forum ... and as we know, even though there are so many cars on the roads, car penetration is still quite low in India, as compared to other countries around the globe. And the only reason for that is affordability.

Cheers,

FourWheelDrift

[7000plusrpm]

The study conducted by Kotak focused on car ownership. However, given the economic situation in our country, this may not entirely feasible. If we take the liberty to generalize the statement a bit further, we can assume that people may opt for private transport. And this may not be limited to cars alone. I expect people who are aware of the situation and can afford one, will opt for a two-wheeler to maintain social distancing post-COVID-19 era. What this will do to our roads is an entirely different discussion altogether!

[y448]

I do agree with Kodak study that preference for private vehicles will increase due to Corona and post economic recovery the automobile sales will see a rise. The variable here is that nobody knows when economy will recover. If the recovery happens within next 1 to 1.5 years it should benefit the auto industry.

Also in the beginning when sales picks, up (assuming economy recovers soon enough) traffic would not be very bad as most people will be avoiding non essential travel.

Many who still have the means to buy a car but did not get one earlier will now go for one due to fear of Corona. But their numbers may not be high in current economic scenario to make a difference in the overall sales numbers.

My 2 cents, Cheers!!

[A.M.]

The study conducted by Kotak makes a lot of sense.
However on the other hand, the entire world will be experiencing one of the worst economic slowdown in a long time. Individual net with will definitely take a hit at all levels.
What I think is that the used car market will now be booming with business. Not everyone would be able to afford a new car, but would still want a car = used car, across all segments.
And over and above that, consider a first time car buyer who is in the market. Suppose he has a budget of 5 lakhs. He is buying a car only due to the fears of the virus. At INR 5 lakhs, he has extremely limited options in the form of the Alto, Alto K10, Kwid, S-Presso, Celerio, and Wagon-R (which is still a far stretch). All these cars have vey basic safety features with pathetic build quality.
At the same price in the used car market, he will get cars like Honda City and Hyundai Verna with much better build quality and much more safety features. Easy finance options are also available on used cars today. And these just to name two cars. His options are literally UNLIMITED.
In today's world, with a decent budget (of say INR 10-12 lakhs), the buyer in the used car market is spoilt for choice if he wants a good car. However, the same cannot be said while buying a new car.

[sam_babushka]

From all economic indicators available currently, the globe is headed into an economic depression. Even the HBR article discussing the economic implication of COVID2 (https://hbr.org/2020/03/understandin...of-coronavirus) stresses on soft loans to consumers to tide over their current loan commitments (housing loan primarily) so as to avoid economic collapse.

It is wishful thinking, to put it mildly, that anyone would spend on cars. I foresee many small business owners, self employed individuals, as equally, salaried individuals in India selling off their existing vehicles to generate capital to tide through what we are going to face in the next 18 months.

[vigneshnr]

Originally Posted by FourWheelDrift

Here's my honest reply, pgsagar :


So, in short, the affordability factor plays a huge role in a person's transportation choice. I don't see affordability changing any time soon.

Cheers,

FourWheelDrift

I completely agree to the 'Affordability' factor. May be in Indian context, the following might be possible trends.

From public transport, people would shift to two-wheeler more. Cars would be definitely out of reach. IMO, Cost per KM is closer with bikes.

Even shared Two-wheeler mobility (vego & like )might increase. But again the question of hygiene would arise. But affordability would a bigger factor.

[Sran]

One thing I understand is that anyone who says they won't buy a car because of infrastructure and driving conditions are that those who are pure lazy or have fewer means. Owning a car is not just about convenience but about freedom of choice, freedom of movement and independence. One can not get that from general taxis, autos or app based taxis.

Given a choice between owning a car versus using public transport for whole life, I can confidently say that 99.99% would choose owning a car if they have the means. Using public transport or taxis everytime and thinking it as convenient and being prideful about it is as foolish as saying it is better to live in a rented house all life. It is about money and when one doesn't have that they concot every lie, to even fool themselves or that person is pure lazy, like not bothering to take a shower daily lazy. I have lived in various states, have travelled extensively and have met people from every aspect of life and have never ever met one single person who does not desire to own even one car. What exactly are you supposed to do with money if you can not even give comfort to yourself and your family? Is everyone now living in a 5000 apartment complex with offices where no one has to outside?

When I read few articles on how new generation is avert to owning a car, it sounded like a paid piece by taxi aggregators to change public perceptation, consensus, mood and show their investors that times are changing. Just like the sugar conspiracy where science journalists, news reporters, opinion writers, businessman and scientists came together (https://www.theguardian.com/society/...ig-john-yudkin) or people were told margarine is better than butter and for a whole lot of 5 years people shifted to cadilla's nutralite instead of butter in India. We have been sold lies before like how soyabean oil is better than mustard oil while eliminating the millenium old benefits of mustard oil and specific regional reqirements (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11103227). Now we are being motivated to consume bhunsa (rice bran) oil. Hundreds of articles being written how bhunsa oil is good for health as if mustard, coconut and nuts have never existed. Think of it, we are being sold bhunsa, a waste. This whole thing that new earners are not in favour of being an owner is lie that is being peddled cab aggregators and different interest groups and car manufacturers do not bother because their cars are being sold no matter who the buyers are. Public transport is only good for office commute otherwise one needs a personal vehicle of any sorts.

Car ownership is down for two reasons only. The rising prices of car and parking problems in old parts of cities. I belong from Patna and a whole 20% of Patna can not buy car because of their locality i.e. Patna city area. It is congested with narrow lanes and non existent parking space because it the old part of the city being constantly inhabitated from the times of King Ajatshatru in 450 B.C. and we have several cities in our country like Patna. Also car prices in last decade have almost doubled and have outpaced inflation. Manufacturers should first address this issue and government is just too happy in making all the absurd money from various taxes related to it.

[VVN]

My 2 cents.

I am pretty sure car ownership will see a spike once this is over and it is inevitable. The sales baseline which was pretty much eroding over the last couple of months will move back up. The millennials in my family who were pro Ola, Uber are suddenly talking about the advantages and the need to have at least 1 car in the family. There is going to be a shift in the mindset when it comes to car ownership.

From a personal point of view, I wouldn't mind boarding the city bus or the train but I won't do so purely because I do not want to take chances when it comes to being a carrier which will affect the elderly and the sick.

[Murugan]

I drove to work till the lockdown in one of our idle cars from mid March 2020 due to the Coronavirus/ Covid-19 scare.

I had shifted to app based cabs in Chennai 3 to 4 years ago from being chauffeured for more than a decade due to the convenience and cost effectiveness.

In all probability, till this pandemic settles, I'll probably drive or restart being chauffeured to work.

Would be interesting to know what other bhpians are doing; time for a poll perhaps⁉️

[Miyata]

Originally Posted by ChiragM

According to a report by Kotak, car buyers could choose private cars over public transport due to the virus fears.

Totally agreed on that. In the early phase of the coronavirus news, when I did offer quickride rides, spoke with quite a few people/co-riders about this very thing -

> Those that already had a car / bike sitting at home, were planning on using them exclusively going forward.

> Few on the fence wanted to wait out before deciding on purchasing a car but seemed in favor of getting one if things get bad.

Shortly enough I totally stopped offering quickrides. Even otherwise whenever I have offered rides, I preferred to always park my car in direct sunlight instead of parking in shade/cover - the hope that all the heat inside will also sanitize the car inside and out!

[Thermodynamics]

Next time I board a bus, I'm going to watch out who is sitting next to me, what symptoms they got and hesitate/suspect everything, the tickets, the coins, the handlebars...

Next time I board a cab I'm going to watch out if the cab is filthy, smelly, the rags, the AC draft that blows through wet cooling coil...

Next time I take a train, I'm going to watch out, the leprosy, the filariasis, the paan stains, the window draft that is laden with aerosols of human waste...

In contrast, despite the present paranoia, if I had to get out for occasional grocery/medicines, I feel safe in my car than say an elevator in our Apartment (would use stairs instead). The importance of private vehicle is strongly felt now than ever.