[buntee90]

Originally Posted by travelpanthi

We already have an existing thread discussing Indian Hyundais and developed market Hyundais.
So I wanted to share similar information for Kia Seltos.
We know that Indian version Seltos has codename SP2i, similarly new Creta is called SU2i.

Note: The information is neither publicly accessible nor freely available. One needs to register and buy some credit to access available content.

Here we have Bhpians who are obtaining and educating important information to the public by paying from their own pockets and on the other hand Mr R C Bhargava is busy blaming the NCAP terming it as a biased Private Company rather than working on safety of their "Only Dil se" Strong cars!

Thank you TravelPanthi for this important piece of info!

I have sent this thread to a prospective Creta Diesel buyer, maybe it will put some sense into him and maybe just maybe look towards Jeep Compass instead.

[arjab]

Originally Posted by Storm2.0

I think manufactures in India should launch two packages ie 1st one focusing on features and less of safety and the other one providing less of features and more of safety and let the customer choose and pay for accordingly. This will cater to the needs of both safety and bling conscious customers in India.

Long, long time ago, I remember, (the benefits of being an old codger ), a manufacturer in India did this.
It's name was Maruti and the year was 1984-85.
They launched the MARUTI 800 DX (based on the SS-80). It had inertia reel Front Seat Belts! A few other "luxury features" such as an AC, a radio cassette player, tinted glass all around and a 12volt accessory socket with a cigarette lighter. And it was priced at a whopping Rs 100,000 in those days, when the bread and butter models used to cost somewhere between Rs 68,000 - 72,000 ! Lots of people bought the 800 DX.
But the market was different then. Owning a Maruti 800 meant that you were the "stud" in your neighburhood! And the kind of monopolistic sway Maruti had in those days meant it could get away with anything.

[vellatechie]

Does anyone have an idea how much cost saving this translates into per car?

[RedPhobos]

Originally Posted by arjab

High levels of crash safety in automobiles can come to a country if:

1. The country in question has very tough homologation and certification standards which all OEM's have to adhere to without which they cannot sell their products (Eg: USA, Continental Europe and UK)

2. Consumer awareness and maturity. Where the consumer demand for safety and safety systems forces the OEM's to implement high levels of safety in their products

3. Combination of 1 & 2.

So, the onus is not on the OEM's. They are here to make money and they will continue to do so as it's a business they are running. No, I am not defending car makers at all.

So, we the car buying public have to demand safety, of course that means we have to prepare to pay a higher sticker price, (which can be negated somewhat by rolling out better & multiple scope for purchases by the banks), to buy our cars and the Government of the land has to be very firm in implementing safety standards o that we are at par globally.

I agree with the above mentioned points completely. Now since individually we cannot force our government to change or bring about new laws; the least we can do is make well informed buying decisions. I recommend that we all take a pledge to always buy the top variant of any vehicle. The top variant always has all the safety features. Sometimes this could mean a sacrifice on our part as we might need to settle for a vehicle from a lower category or from a different manufacturer, when the top variant of the vehicle we want is out of our budget. We need to buy with our brains rather than from our hearts. Only when we do this and the data supports and shows the manufacturers and our government that vehicles with less or variants of vehicles with less safety features just don’t sell, will they be encouraged to bring about major structural changes in my honest opinion.

[arjab]

Originally Posted by vellatechie

Does anyone have an idea how much cost saving this translates into per car?

Substantial. Because when you are cutting out safety measures, you are actually doing an engineering change, a feature change and possibly a material change.
For example in EU or US , door hinges & locks need to undergo a "door slam test" for say, for "xxxxxx" number of times, to check door hinge integrity, how much it sags, whether "door pull" effort increases or not and so on and so forth. Thus this test has a certain cost attached for the "xxxxxx" number of cycles.
This OEM when it operates in India will dilute that test to maybe "0.25 of xxxxxx" . The standards automatically change now because the engineering threshold, to attain an approval, is now much lower. Therefore you can use less thicker hinges, shorter retaining pins, slimmer door check straps etc.
Now, this is just one example. Do this for every part and can you imagine the savings?
Similarly, to make a long member dissipate the kinetic energies of a 64kmph crash requires far greater depth of engineering and material superiority compared to the same test at 56kmph where crash loads are far lesser, and you can attain a pass with inferior grade of components.

There was a time when cars were "over-engineered" , the Mercedes E Class W124 series for example. Nowadays car makers call it "optimum engineering"

Infer what you will.

[bhansali_hardik]

Can someone please address the sonet diagrams?
Having the car engineered and developed here for the global market as they claim, do we see any sort of positive in the structural diagrams shared here? Also how does it stands against the Indian venue (i).
It's so frustrating to see engineering done to make things bad!

OT: Someone I know was booking a seltos. Gave him some insights on the rating and his reaction was, well all Indian cars should be similar I think it's ok. I love the way it looks I'm gonna buy it either ways! I did not want to lecture about the other cars so I let him be. But realised we are far from being knowledgeable in automotive sector as a country.

[srishiva]

Originally Posted by travelpanthi

I got inspiration to do my own research from his thread only.
Some reasons I created this thread:

1. His thread is more focused on Hyundai and has comparison between different Hyundai models.
2. I wanted to go through such information for my own curiosity sake. And neither Seltos nor Creta details are yet available. I wouldn't have spent approx Rs 2000 just for few images.
3. The images are straight from their website, only thing I did was to copy them side by side in Paint. Rest assured for the genuineness of these images.

Thank you very much for taking the effort. Now you get to see vehicles more than skin deep. Its taken a lot of attraction off of Hyundai/Kia vehicles for me.

I hope they dont start painting their images with red paint to put off people downloading the images just kidding

[low_rider]

We keep blaming the manufacturers for the double standards especially with regards to our third world country. What no one understands is the high taxation structure that the manufacturers face in India. The total tax on a car accumulated across all stages of manufacturing comes to around 40~50% of the total price.
So, if an American or European pays some amount to the manufacturer, their government taken 20% out of this and the manufacturer gets 80% to manufacture a car. Here, the government takes 50% and the manufacturer gets only 50% to manufacture a car.
Guess who is going to get modern, safer, faster cars with gizmos?

[Bluengel180]

Originally Posted by low_rider

We keep blaming the manufacturers for the double standards especially with regards to our third world country. What no one understands is the high taxation structure that the manufacturers face in India. The total tax on a car accumulated across all stages of manufacturing comes to around 40~50% of the total price.
So, if an American or European pays some amount to the manufacturer, their government taken 20% out of this and the manufacturer gets 80% to manufacture a car. Here, the government takes 50% and the manufacturer gets only 50% to manufacture a car.
Guess who is going to get modern, safer, faster cars with gizmos?

There are cheaper cars with gizmos and higher safety ratings. This is one thing that's completely on the manufacturer. They cannot use this as an excuse.

[IP_Man]

Originally Posted by travelpanthi

By no means I am capable of concluding anything. I just want to share this information.

Thanks for sharing this eye-opening information.

Conclusion is very clear. Indians are getting step-motherly treatment. We are getting substandard version compared to international one. Why this difference? How much they are going to save? But I think it's not the cost, they want clear demarcation between the Indian version and international version, they want to show, how international version is superior. It is a marketing strategy.

[low_rider]

Originally Posted by Bluengel180

There are cheaper cars with gizmos and higher safety ratings. This is one thing that's completely on the manufacturer. They cannot use this as an excuse.

Any examples? I guess "cheaper" means < 10 lakh or < 15 lakhs

[Bluengel180]

Originally Posted by low_rider

Any examples? I guess "cheaper" means < 10 lakh or < 15 lakhs

Since this thread is about the Seltos which goes up to 18-20 lakhs on road the Nexon and XUV300 are 5 star rated at less than half the price. Plenty of 4-5 star examples for less than 10 lakhs, the Altroz is 5 star rated, heck even the Tiago which is almost entry level is 4 star rated.

If you are talking specifically about non Indian companies. The Polo has managed a decent 4 stars. Even the Brezza and the Etios are 4 star rated.

[DriveShrive]

After carefully observing all crash test charts, Can anyone help me understand what is Crash test weight? I guess it's the car's weight with all dummies seated. Here, prev gen Creta has 1496kgs. Seltos was 1391kgs so 105kgs lighter? I can accept this but Altroz was 1401kgs, a hatch 10kgs heavier than Seltos.
Also, XUV300 is rated as 1637kgs. Sure XUV300 can be heavier but 246kgs heavier? I just can't believe it. Any views?

[John]

As a Seltos HTX+ owner, I would have preferred more UHSS instead of the useless sunroof

[Turbohead]

Originally Posted by Bluengel180

There are cheaper cars with gizmos and higher safety ratings. This is one thing that's completely on the manufacturer. They cannot use this as an excuse.

Car manufacturers are product companies. They will only cater to what the people want. Currently it's features that matter more than safety. With the limited amount of money (50%) they get from the customer, they have to impress him no matter what! And since car manufacturers are not legally bound to create safer cars, they can simply compromise on structural safety legally, however unethical it may be.

Yes, the govt is also at fault here for two reasons 1) For milking customers who demand value for every penny they pay which forced manufacturers to skimp on safety 2) For not enforcing proper crash tests.

The govt can't implement these crash tests properly because if they do, car prices are going to go up further and that will upset the masses because they are also unwilling to reduce the taxes.

Even if we consider Tata, Mahindra and VW, who have built safe cars, there are compromises in other areas like features and 'assumed reliability' which tilts the favour for Hyundai even for many BHPians ( although that is coming down). There is so much you can do with a limited budget that you will have to compromise somewhere or the other.

The only loser here is the consumer.