[AKSarkar1]

Originally Posted by abhishek_hch

Its a bit difficult to believe that someone would surrender Kia dealership at this point in time. A lot of businessmen would give an arm & a leg to get the same. Perhaps your friend is not telling you the complete thing - may be he has his own problems or it was Kia that decided to withdraw.

A car is not a short term investment. Any prudent businessman/woman realizes that sooner or later they will have to deal with unhappy customers and buyers. Some people are okay with that and some are not. Maybe my friend belongs to to the latter since for him reputation comes first. He also owned the service and AS aspect as a part of his contract and such issues were becoming increasingly evident. Sure I might not know the 'complete thing' but make what you will of it

[abhishek_hch]

Originally Posted by S15

Maybe he realizes that Kia dont have any other products planned in the pipeline?
I mean what next after the sonet.

That's not a problem for the immediate future for someone to give up on a Kia dealership. Atleast for the next couple of years, any Kia dealer would be laughing all the way to the bank.

I came across an article on Zigwheels today that Kia will launch the new logo, unveil updates to Seltos and announce their new product on 26/27 April. Considering that all their products have been successes till now, two of them being runaway successes, I don't think a dealer has much to worry on that front. If any dealer is, well he/she is just being fidgety.

[GoCool]

I think Kia is successful for a reason. They understand that bringing Panoramic sun roof is important to sell it to average joe of India. One friend of mine who is waiting to take the delivery of Seltos mentioned that the car is well built because the doors feel heavy. He even went a step ahead and compared it to Toyota camry doors. The sales team at Kia must be happy with this decision of Panoramic sun roof. Just that one missing thing that they cannot convincingly answer until now.

[TwerkyC0ffee]

With the addition of panoramic sunroof (and subsequent relocation/possibly removal of roof structural members) compromise the already (comparatively) weak body shell of the Seltos?

Am I missing something? Please shed some light on this.

P.S. Kia has excellent opportunity to work on unsafe body shell and enhance the safety of Seltos if they are going to alter the body structure for installing Panoramic Sunroof.

[abhishek_hch]

Originally Posted by AKSarkar1

A car is not a short term investment. Any prudent businessman/woman realizes that sooner or later they will have to deal with unhappy customers and buyers. Some people are okay with that and some are not. Maybe my friend belongs to to the latter since for him reputation comes first.

As of now I do not think that customer satisfaction is such a big issue with Kia so as to make one want to not to continue with the relationship with the brand lest it spoil his reputation. All the Kia owners that I know are extremely happy with the car & the TeamBHP thread also bears this out. Niggles are part & parcel of all car brands especially the newer ones.

[Jatin247]

I saw a video on youtube which was posted by Team Car Delight. Here he posts walk around of all variants of every new car and seeing his connections and frequent visits at dealership he was sure about this since feb. In order to compete with creta a panoramic sunroof would be enough.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_9u5eC4m_g&t=1s

I was also confused between buying creta and seltos but went ahead with creta because it is expected that Kia would introduce this refresh version of seltos in later part of 2021 and I didn't wanted my car to feel old within just a few months of purchase though it is quite hard to resist the sharp looks of seltos.

[Axe77]

To me, the two biggest feature differentiators between the siblings were pano sunroof and paddle shifters. Considering they’re carrying identical engine tranny combos, I feel both these features should be matched. Then perhaps the only remaining difference is the ride quality.

My only other peeve with the Kia is the heavy use of chrome which to me makes it look garish but it doesn’t take a lot to blacken all that out. That’s one of the simpler things to achieve I suppose.

Hope they price match the car with the Creta post adding these features. I can’t see any reason to give more money to Kia for what is exactly the same product as Hyundai is providing.

[shomeet]

This could be a fact.

Although I don't believe my Sales consultant completely but it seems that production is being ramped down because of a feature rejig and the new Kia logo.

They are delaying my delivery quoting this reason. According to them KIA has asked deliveries to be pushed out by two weeks as April manufactured vehicles will be with the new logo.

[sramanat]

I see a lot of people talking about safety (or the perceived lack thereof). Despite that the cars are selling like hot cakes. There are two ways to look at it. This analysis holds for other convenience features as well.

1. Utilization: A simple back of the envelope calculation and research published elsewhere hint at a utilization of a car at 4%. Even with a 50-50 mix, highway utilization is about 2%. Assuming city driving causes non-fatal and minor-injury accidents, let us leave that out for ease of comparison.
That roughly translates to 1750 hours of highway driving over 10 years. Let us assign a random probability of 50% sunroof usage. That is about 850-900 hours of sunroof usage for a 100k price premium. That's an awesome deal.
Pricing safety over 1750 hours of highway driving is a bit tricky. You have about 500K recorded collisions and 150K deaths in a year in India. What are your odds of being in one over 1750 hours of driving, I am not sure. I am guessing that's a miniscule amount compared to the price premium of 4* crash rating or 6 air bags.
On the face of it, it seems reasonable for a person to be willing to pay more to a comfort feature than to a safety feature.

2. Insurance: It is known that people tend to underestimate the risk (or black swan events). What ESP or airbags or solid build offer you is protection against you being one of the 150K odd fatalities in a year. Someone from insurance industry or with access to actuarial tables can help us price this. If one were to buy a life/health insurance purely for road accident deaths/injuries and nothing else, what would be the cost of such an insurance? How does that compare with the price premium of improved safety features.

[nma83]

Originally Posted by sramanat

...
You have about 500K recorded collisions and 150K deaths in a year in India. What are your odds of being in one over 1750 hours of driving, I am not sure. I am guessing that's a miniscule amount compared to the price premium of 4* crash rating or 6 air bags.
On the face of it, it seems reasonable for a person to be willing to pay more to a comfort feature than to a safety feature.
...
What ESP or airbags or solid build offer you is protection against you being one of the 150K odd fatalities in a year.
...

The premise here seems to be we want to keep fatalities at ~150K/year and not bring it down by having better safety features!

[Shreyas_H]

Originally Posted by sramanat

There are two ways to look at it. This analysis holds for other convenience features as well.

1. Utilization
2. Insurance:

I'm sorry and nothing against you, but such a cost-benefit analysis or a probability analysis seems ridiculous to me when it comes to the safety of me and my family.
Such statistical analytics may point to a very low probability but it's that one bad day or one bad driver that can change everything. Safety over anything else for me!


I would personally always want to have a vehicle that is designed to be safe and protect it's occupants rather than bling being it's USP.

Coming to the topic, this would be a welcome addition to the Seltos and should really help it's sales. Hope they reduce the stiffness in the ride quality in the facelift too!

[sramanat]

Originally Posted by nma83

The premise here seems to be we want to keep fatalities at ~150K/year and not bring it down by having better safety features!

No, and I wonder how you arrived at that conclusion. I am just trying to understand how one could price safety within the context of a car. And if the average buyer is doing it right.

[pkk077]

Originally Posted by sramanat

You have about 500K recorded collisions and 150K deaths in a year in India. What are your odds of being in one over 1750 hours of driving

OT but this reminded me of a quote I read in a kernel programming book in the context of kernel crashes - your odds of being eaten by a tiger in the streets of New York is very low but it happening once is enough.

[rpm]

Originally Posted by VKumar

.........You should be thankful that it's T-BHP and not another social media platform. Kia has a nice social media team, and awesome fanboy support. This panoramic sunroof will make it to the news in big and bold letters, and people will happily pay 50k more for the Seltos. Remember, they made Hormazd sorabjee say "GNCAP ratings are highly misleading as they don't test the variants with complete safety".........

Is Hormazd an auto-enthusiast and/or a revered journalist? Because if he is, I don't see how any manufacturer can make him compromise his journalistic integrity, let alone the auto-enthusiast in him, unless, of course, he isn't any of those, in which case, we already know what to expect from such journos who can parrot the PR lines auto manufacturers tell them to.

Ever since Renuka Kirpalani's defence of Seltos' GNCAP results, I've always looked at Autocar with scorn— only following their inside scoops since. Unfortunately, it seems like Hormazd is parroting the same PR lines as his colleague, suggesting that a car with an unstable body-shell would fare better in a crash test if only GNCAP tested the top variant. It isn't your entry level Nano to rationalize the lack of safety in the cheapest possible variant citing money constraints— it costs 4-5 times as much even in the cheapest avatar, Hormazd. Other manufacturers also work with the same constraints, either get over it or stop spreading misconceptions and lies.

Why do they think it is OK to call some cars safe citing that they comply with (inferior) Indian norms yet completely disregard another test which tests two of the same parameters, just at a more up-to-date speed? Is getting international crash compliance in one or two of these parameters really that hard to digest for these journos?

[sramanat]

Originally Posted by Shreyas_H

I'm sorry and nothing against you, but such a cost-benefit analysis or a probability analysis seems ridiculous to me when it comes to the safety of me and my family.
Such statistical analytics may point to a very low probability but it's that one bad day or one bad driver that can change everything. Safety over anything else for me!


I would personally always want to have a vehicle that is designed to be safe and protect it's occupants rather than bling being it's USP.

Coming to the topic, this would be a welcome addition to the Seltos and should really help it's sales. Hope they reduce the stiffness in the ride quality in the facelift too!

Different people have different ways to evaluate risk and different willingness to pay to eliminate some or all of it. For the same reason I don't pay my entire paycheck to buy a term life insurance for 100 crore, people may not want to pay 1 lakh more for safety features. That's the state of the market as understood by marketing/product guys in auto companies. I agree this is a subject that's ridden with emotions, but sadly the guys who get paid to design and develop cars see it in terms of cost and benefit. I am just trying to explain the reasons why people (both buyer and seller) decide in a certain way.