[1.2TSI7DSG]

Originally Posted by searacer932

And they still priced XL6 atrociously!

Blame people like me who keep complaining about build quality, wanting more airbags, touch screens, ADAS and sunroofs.

[Mustang Sammy]

As a customer of Maruti, all I can say is Stay Away from their products, if you can afford to.
Maruti’s products are shoddily built, outdated and missing important safety elements. The “tin can” analogy could not be more accurate.
Their vaunted after sales service consists of their reps calling you multiple times a week to schedule the service, hassling you for feedback afterwards and doing absolutely nothing when said feedback is negative.
The world has moved on, Mr. Bhargava, and your company should too.

[deehunk]

If the government increases the number of minimum airbags for 5-seater cars, Maruti Suzuki may have to say goodbye to their entry-level cars. I wish more success to Tata and other manufacturers in the coming days.

[prajwalmr62]

Yes, safety features have increased and did build up more cost, but we must not forget costs of basic items are ever increasing too. And combine that with stagnant incomes and ever growing inflation, people's purchase power has gone down. I'm not talking about you or me, but the guy who owns a small restaurant in tier-3 town, the nearby kirani store family, and the majority of small farmers who are still selling their crops at the 4 year old prices. None of these groups are growing at a pace where they can afford a car sometime in the future.

Maruti might be making very basic, unattractive, unsafe cars at the 8-15L segment, but one needs to remember they also have basic cars from 4L as well. If there are no takers for these entry cars, it either means

1. People are making enough money to skip the entry levels and buy the cars from other segment. Or,
2. People are not making enough money.


I would love to believe it is the first case, but second is the most probable one.

Can Maruti sell more cars at 10-20L segment? May be they can. But if Maruti cannot sell a 4L car, nobody can.

[armaan_singh]

In a country like ours with a population of 1.3 Billion, small cars can never go out of fashion, while it may for us folks and maybe even a certain segment of the middle class folks, however every day there are 1000s around the country who are upgrading from their 60,000 Rs scooters and bikes. Probably taking an auto loan against down payment of 1,00,000 which would then be paid over the next 5 years. And let’s not forget a majority of these folks are in tier 3 cities, small towns where your average Kia or Tata might not even have a dealership/service network.

I don’t expect this section of society (and they are in huge numbers) to honestly care about turbo petrols or even GNCAP for that matter, they need 4 wheels and a roof and seating capacity for a family of 4. That’s about it, so the small car market will remain a reality in India for the foreseeable future.

[Vtach]

I think Mr Bhargava (& for that matter head honchos of other companies trying to get first time car buyers' attention) would benefit from a relook into the target section's psyche. Growing up in small tier 2,3 towns and moving to cities subsequently I feel gives a unique window of observation of the car composition of the places, the shifting trends and I think the boffins could also gain useful insights by travelling like their target customers once in a while.

Who travels by public transport buses in India?

It's the economically productive people of lower middle class, and if I may call it, the class between poor & lower middle class. Those who need to get to an office or factory or other place of employment on time; and who can't yet afford to run a vehicle (buying/upkeep/fuel etc all considered) of their own.

Would most of these people like to travel in a relatively better way (safer/ comfortable/prestigious/private/away from eve teasers and riff raff/AC..take your pick)??.. Hell yeah.
Its a burning desire in most that they keep bottling up in view of more pressing issues needing attention (and money)..children's education in a good (& thereby expensive) school being on top for most, rent and consumables a close second.

When (& if) they eventually do get to the stage where they can afford a new car (not getting into first a two wheeler then car, preowned, cash vs loan arguments here); how do they decide where to put that hard earned money?

They look around in their immediate neighborhood, the relatives/friends who own a car. Significant importance is given to things like how much (perceived) elevation in social status it brings, how's the owner's experience with the vehicle (both publicly acknowledged & hearsay), how many people (in their circle) have chosen that car. They don't frequent objective automobile fora like TeamBHP or visit automobile showrooms to take test drives.

And this is where Maruti is loosing it's plot. Hyundai (successfully with its wow interiors) and Tata (getting there, with its design and projected safety narrative) have been making earnest efforts to give that additional USP to rope in the adventurous first time buyers, and thereby gaining an audience with the buyers' immediate circle too. Maruti is relying too much on its only ace - perceived lower upfront & running cost (being eroded slowly, steadily).

These observations have been made after almost 2 decades of public transport bus travel for various purposes & seeing the vehicle ownership trend (own and acquaintances) across various mofussil tier 2,3 Indian towns; and may have observership/ recency biases built in.

Would love to know fellow members' experiences/opinions on this & Maruti's state of affairs.

[autotranny]

For me, the biggest drawback with Maruti is that none of their cars have any aspirational value, after the first and second generation Swift. I can't think of any one aspiring to buy a Wagon-R or Espresso or Ciaz. These purchase decisions are driven by other factors.

I segregate Maruti buyers into 2 categories :-

a) The conservative lot, i.e. the ones who choose Maruti since that's the most common brand, have wide network of sales and service, good resale value, good fuel economy etc. These guys are not big on feature or safety kit and are not willing to take a punt on similarly priced Renault or Nissan.

b) Live in a rural or semi urban setting where they have limited presence from other manufacturers in their budget.

Maruti, if you need to reinvent yourself, launch a Jimny or a proper Grand Vitara.

[sanchari]

Some random musings:

1. Yes, the Maruti chairman is correct to some extent. The WFH option decimated the earnings of many people, especially in the service oriented lower-middle class sector. The people working in office buildings, cafeterias, autorickshaw drivers, restaurant workers, cab drivers, gig workers etc to a large extent saw their earnings evaporate overnight. These were the people who would have purchased 2-wheelers or used/new cars. This sector is yet to recover as many companies are still working from home. If things go back to normal, over the next two years, we can see the earning power rise in this sector and consequently, their discretionary purchases

2. The cab sector (Ola/Uber/company transports etc) suffered a lot. These were the people who would have purchased Ritz/Tata Bolt/Etios etc and/or used cars. They haven't fully recovered yet as companies are still in WFH mode.

3. WFH didn't spare even many middle class sectors. I know many schools stopped paying salaries to their teachers and had one teacher teach 50-100 students online, where 2 or 3 would have done it in different sections in physical schools. Same in construction sector and other areas. Hopefully with many of these already opening up, the 2nd half of this year should be much better if no 4th wave of Covid turns up.

4. People are also now more circumspect on taking loans for things like 2/4 wheelers and are keeping a bit buffer in case something similar happens like Covid again. The retail credit growth is still to go up to pre-covid levels.

5. The bare-bones cars that Maruti used to sell was of course cheaper by a lakh or more due to weak structure and no safety features. While it is still safer than a 2 wheeler, does it seem ethically right to exclude safety features for entry level cars based on affordability like what Maruti advocates? The 4 wheeler also might give a "false sense of security" to those upgrading from 2 wheelers that it is more safer, and might lead to being accident prone (no data to base this off, just speculating here). Having safety features even in entry level cars makes sense in my opinion, to ensure that people are really safe.

6. As some have pointed out, the entry level salaries of IT majors hasn't kept pace with inflation. Even now, I believe the likes of Infy/Wipro/TCS offer around Rs 25k for first year and around 30-32k after that. But the prices of all other commodities including rent, car, 2 wheeler prices have almost doubled in last 10 years. People are starting from a lower base and making their way up more slowly. So one of the factors that shows decline in their first car purchases too.

[fiat_tarun]

While I am not a fan of Mr. Bhargava's thoughts and resistance to any change, unfortunately what he has said now is true.

We on the forum are part of the 27/1000 Indians who own a car, but put yourself in the shoes of the other 973 people for every 1000 Indians who don't own a car yet but aspire to one day.

The fact is that the government (both centre and state) have prioritised revenue generation from the auto industry rather than looking to grow the market to compete with China & the US. We will remain a 3 - 4million car market for the foreseeable future as it is becoming harder to own a car with ever increasing prices, fuel, insurance, etc.

A look at the 2 wheeler numbers since Covid will give you a sense of how the lower end of society has been affected - 2021 was far below the 2019 & 2018 numbers and 2022 has started off even lower. Taxing even entry level 2W at 28% GST is seriously wrong and needs to be corrected at the earliest. It is a fact that people are holding off 2W purchases in the entry level segments. Link to an article on this situation

While I appreciate the government for driving the efforts towards cleaner and safer vehicles, they have to compensate the increase in cost by some tax rationalisation. The drop in sales is anyway hurting revenue collection.

[sunshineqq]

I would also consider the rising fuel prices as a factor. Due to the super high fuel prices, it just does not make sense to buy a new car. Rather stick to the old one or wait till an affordable electric car launches.
Also the used car market has several players who make the car appear good as new leading to people reusing old cars better.
All in all, I think the rise in petrol prices might also lead to a positive change to electric faster. More electric cars, more people will feel the need to have solar panels at homes and more electricity generated from sun and less emissions.
Probably, the govt is not reducing fuel costs as they feel this might accelerate the switch to renewables as every Tom, Dick and Harry can talk about electric cars only now.
The only issue is that we just need more players other than Tata. That lag from other companies in launching electric models is what seems strange!!!!