[Raghu M]

When I was car shopping/searching, never did it come across that I would own an Indian brand. Trust me, the fit and finish, engine refinement and the overall performance of the 3OO has blown me away. After 20 months and 16K on the odo, I have not faced a single niggle till now. The ownership experience and the service experience has been very good. It's high time the Indian brands got their due and I am sure they will do better in the coming months.

[WasherNut0402]

Great writeup.

Just a matter of days to become true. With Tata buying the Defunct Ford factory, soon time will crown TATA with the second place in Indian Passenger car market.
As for M&M, unless they buy or build a new facility that can churn out the tanks that their R&D are producing, They are looking to fare well below the 30-35K per month sales mark for years to come.
However, The new 5 EV with the latest launches from M&M surely says something about the re-birth of Indian automakers.
INDIAN AUTOMAKERS HAVE RISEN FROM ASHES.

[haribalram]

This thread is a celebration of the Indian brands, M & M & Tata, their grand vision, terrific R & D & marketing strategies. I have been a M & M customer for 12 years and have been following them closely. Hat trick of hits with Thar, XUV700 & ScorpioN. Harrier and Safari are drool-worthy vehicles too. Having created such a huge demand, I only hope for increased production capacity from M & M.

[aniketi]

5* safety ratings helping Tata and Mahindra big way. In a way it's good that people are giving preference to safety first than fancy and some useless features. Also credit goes to their design teams who have given us some wonderful cars. Kudos to both !!

Very soon we we can see Tata and Mahindra capturing number 2 and 3 along. All the best

[Asish_VK]

Along with all the positives discussed here, the SUV trend also helped TATA and Mahindra here.

Even historically, we welcomed both of their SUV offerings and almost all models sold well, eventhough they were inferior compared to the competition (both technically and feature wise).

Indian market had the perception that the SUV's from both of these are capable (they were, to some extend) and many models were desirable (Sierra, Sumo, Safari, Armada, Scorpio etc).

If we analyse their current sales, biggest chunk of sales for both Tata & Mahindra are from SUV's/CSUV's. Almost 100% in case of Mahindra.

[Jaisalmeriya]

Apt thread and great timing. Both Tata and Mahindra have made huge inroads through their ingenuity and persistence, thinking different too!

Their products and focus on safety, ruggedness and design language has helped tremendously for the user section who had always wanted to buy from an Indian manufacturer but didn’t have the right options. We have got 2 new Tata vehicles in last 4 years - a Tiago and later a Nexon. Both the cars have been amazing so far and have built the confidence to go for our next Indian car.

Living on the road which pretty much has all the car brand outlets within a 2 km drive, Tata and Mahindra showrooms are most abuzz with activity and customer footfalls.

Kudos to the leadership and the teams at Tata and Mahindra who are making us proud everyday and leaving a firm footprint on sales charts.

[dsuman]

Really happy to see our Homegrown Manufacturers in the Top 5. I would attribute it to the focus of Tata and Mahindra to focus on Vehicles with higher Star Ratings and Premium Feel and features. I will go to the extent to say that these 2 Manufacturers valued Indians more than other Manufacturers (I am looking at Maruti and Hyundai). Maruti continued churning out cheap built cars. Hyundai made their cars light and who can forget the niggles (Some Life Threatening as well) in almost all Hyundai Range of cars.

People are noticing. People like being valued.

[PrideRed]

Good to see nice cars coming from Tata/Mahindra and topping sales chart. Hope they don't get complacent. Tata had great success with Indica,Indigo,Safari,Sumo and were in top3/4 for quite some time. They did not launch anything groundbreaking until Tiago/Nexon and sales took a beating. Same with Mahindra after XUV, type 2 Scorpio, Thar Crde there was a brief pause and people gradually lost interest in brand. Tata and Mahindra are in similar state as they were 10-15 years ago, hope they don't give up this time.

[anjan_c2007]

Mr Anshul Saigal, CIO, Kotak Mahindra PMS also predicts good times for the auto sector. He says that it's a four year cycle and the buoyancy visible now marks the beginning of this four year cycle after a dismal time since around post 2019.

For the first quarter of this financial year, autos actually disappointed on numbers but that was expected by the market which did not react adversely despite the underperformance.
Now going forward, as commodity prices have corrected over the last one quarter and as many of the logistics issues, supply issues have eased, the expectation is that there will be tailwinds of demand as we move ahead, particularly on the CV side. These are four year cycles and we are probably in the first year of that four-year cycle.

Also, on passenger vehicles, we are entering a phase where demand uptick is quite robust. In fact, for many of the new vehicles which have been launched, waiting periods are as high as one and a half years which is unprecedented. That tells us that there is a significant demand uptick and we are also seeing constraints go away and that cannot be anything but good for the auto sector.

We believe that this space is going to see tailwinds going forward. If OEMs see tailwinds, it will translate down into auto ancillary players doing well, also in the same vein. We remain constructive on this space and think that this cycle is at the cusp of a takeoff.

https://m.economictimes.com/markets/...w/93621995.cms

Coming from a honcho who oversees portfolio management of the Kotak Mahindra mutual funds his assertions have some weight.

On the flip side, much before the beginning of the trailing four year cycle (2017-21), signs of low demand and sales in the auto sector were much visible by mid-2018, much before the pandemic crippled the nation's economy. Hence buoyancy if any in the first year of a four year cycle about which Mr Saigal is talking, were nearly invisible in the trailing four year cycle.

[vivek2652]

Recently drove my friend's newly acquired XUV 300 and was pleasantly surprised by the interior quality, fit and finish and features offered. And the cherry on top is 5-star safety rating. Gone are the days when Mahindra was 'only' known for its pick-up trucks and Scorpio. It is a good thing that Indian buyers have matured and are going for safe cars which will help other brands to make safe cars as well due to competition.

[SaiSW]

Tata is doing decently in the 20+ lac segment and brilliantly below that, meanwhile the opposite seems to be true for Mahindra. Mahindra seems to have given up on the small car altogether, and who can blame them when people are lining up with checks in their hands, ready to wait months to get their SUVs delivered. The 7OO and Scorpio during their life cycle will probably have sold more units than every Mahindra small car put together.

I hope things change for Tata with regards to the high profit margin segments after the launch of their Creta rival. They need to pack it to the gills with features, maybe some which we've never seen before in the segment. No stones unturned - 360° camera, ventilated seats, fully digital driver's console, auto headlamps and wipers, 60:40 flat folding seats, auto dimming IRVM, panoramic sunroof, full HID/LED setup and maybe for the 'never seen before' one, an electric tailgate perhaps? One that opens with gesture controls, like in the fortuner. But that, only for the absolute top end variant though, maybe a special top end variant which is different from their usual naming schemes, like the Ecosport Signature variant - Blackbird Signature or Platinum edition.

They need to prove to Hyundai group that, in that segment, a company can make a car that is packed with features yet also safe at the same time.

With regards to engines, maybe axe the Harrier petrol and introduce the all new 1.5 petrol in the Blackbird instead. Anything but that archaic 1.2 in this segment or the petrol will be DOA. Maybe 120-125 hp for the Blackbird and maybe later in a higher state of tune for the Harrier, so as to justify the price difference.
And as for the diesel, the 1.5 revotorq is more than enough.

They ABSOLUTELY need to stop drip feeding us, people have shown that they trust Indian brands enough to spend more than 2 million rupees on their products, so Tata needs to launch it with a blast, like the 7OO, instead of launching a lame variant with not many features and then a facelifted one a couple months later with the features people want, which then would be too late. If they launch it as they're supposed to, then I might just be compelled to exchange my Tiago with a brand new Blackbird.

[anjan_c2007]

Automakers are predicting an optimistic one million total vehicle sales this current quarter. Substantial demand and a slew of new launches are giving lots of hopes to them. Record sales this quarter (Q 2) are expected to push up the volume for calendar year 2022 by nearly half a million units over initial projections. These projections were for all-time high volumes seeing the market trends. Sales of cars, utility vehicles and vans this calendar year are now expected to close around 3.85-3.90 million units, up 25-27% over last year. A total of 6,71,000 passenger vehicles have already been sold during July and August. Component supplies are easing and nearly 3,25,000-3,35,000 units will reach dealerships till 31/10/22 , enabling breaching of the 1-million-mark for the first time ever in a quarter. Festive sales will add to the figures during the current month too. A bountiful monsoon will boost rural sales of the sub Rs 10 lakh segments. This segment was under pressure till recently.

https://m.economictimes.com/industry...w/94161404.cms

While their sales were sagging since 2018, as a riposte, these automakers joined hands with the government branding the older cars as chief causative factors contributing to pollution. The draft scrapping policy in its embryo stage since 2017 was revived and notified in 2021. If in the future their sale figures move southward, they with the help of the government could again resort to some such new strategies to boost their sales.

[aniketi]

Kudos to Tata and Mahindra !! They have done tremendous job and made sure that most customers visit their showrooms, consider their cars before taking decision to buy their own. Also satisfying part is they are able to sale cars worth more than 15-20 lakhs in big numbers. Harrier, Safari, XUV700, Scorpio, Thar are all crossing 15+ lakhs on road and people are happily paying for them. Nexon is a great success story in itself for Tata and other manufacturer's should do case study of it. They have moved from 2-3 K per month to 15 K per month is just tremendous. Interestingly they have not done any compromises on safety like other carmakers and making sure that they teach a lesson or two for other so called world class car makers. Mahindra has done superb job with their diesel engines for XUV700, Scorpio even after BS6 norms and made sure that it is one of the best engines available in the market.

I consider Maruti Suzuki also as an Indian carmaker. They are more Maruti than Suzuki for me. I guess they are manufacturing most of the parts in India only. Some of the new cars are designed in India and designed as per our conditions and needs.