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-   -   Skoda Kushaq Onyx AT available now at 13.49L (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/indian-car-scene/281449-skoda-kushaq-onyx-available-now-13-49l-2.html)

And now, with the release of 6 airbags as standard across the range, you can’t even risk slapping on a seat cover anymore.

This is a good move although it has come a bit late and IMO this launch should have been done earlier. Next Skoda should address the customer perception issues like service and ownership costs by innovative marketing to make the customers flock and buy from a brand called 'SKODA'.

That is because buyers look for a combination of performance, NVH, features, ride and handling, ASS, FE.

Honda loses out on account of performance (1.5 NA IVTEC is great, just that it loses out on the fun quotient to the turbo petrols), poor NVH, CVT ( while smooth and reliable, loses out again to TC/DCT)
VAG twins lose out on account of inconsistent product quality, AC and ASS.

Well the market is not stupid, the value is not just with the features but the long term reliability, service availability and the perceived premiumness as well, Honda, like the City still thinks it is a 7 lakh rupee car from 2 decades ago and the lack of insulation and skinny tyres make it feel more like a Swift and Baleno than a car which costs 2-3x more, other pointers would be lack of turbo and diesel options and the generally boring interior design and late mover disadvantage.

The Skoda VW twins have these infamous horror stories which keep the informed customers away and the masses never really connected with these brands, the lack of touch points, the dealer attitude and the premium service and maintenance costs keep the average joe away.

Now don't get me wrong, this at 13.5 is a great deal and even Elevate is a fantastic deal at that prices, I will even recommend it to people upgrading from lower cars without apprehension, but even I know deep down, they will not listen and get the Creta instead or maybe the Seltos.

There is no perfect car as the car makers aims for sensible pricing prioritizing their packaging, especially for global products like ELEVATE. Let's look at the market leaders of the segment,

CRETA/SELTOS : Lacks safety built, turbo and AT variants pricing are absurd. Diesel, feature lists are the major highlight of CRETA cousins.

Grand Vitara/HYRYDER: Lazy engines both NA and Hybrid, poor interior quality, poor standard safety kits. Value for money pricing of NA variants, FE and reach of dealership are the key selling points for both.

IMO ELEVATE is superior to GV/CRETA NA variants in reliability, performance, ride and handling and safety.

I think you missed the fact that - Baleno and Swift are expensive too now.

SWIFT : 6.49-9.54L 1.2 3yl/AMT
BALENO : 6.66-9.83L 1.2 4cy/AMT
BREZZA : 8.34-13.98L 1.5NA /6AT
ELEVATE : 11.58-16.20 1.5NA/CVT

But you are right on the diesel, both VW and Honda lacks diesels or CNG which is available on Hyundai and Maruti.

Sweet pricing. I recollect they had briefly launched a manual variant for 9.99 too which gave significant benefits on the On Road Price because of the sub 10 lac figure. It’s not exactly flying off the shelves, so why not boost the sales?

That's incorrect. MX3 AT is 10.99L ex-showroom. The difference is significant.

In our test drive experience of elevate, we liked cvt and suspension but front seats are ergonomically very bad. I am 5’6”. Not sure how taller folks can adjust especially on passenger side where height adjustments are not possible. I own a Honda Jazz and this is completely unexpected from Honda. This is something we couldn’t overlook and hope they rectify in next facelift.

Overall my experience of the petrol automatic cars in the segment is Creta = Seltos >> Astor > Elevate = Grand Vitara (Full Hybrid) .
This segment is mostly not for price conscious buyers. XL6 etc are more practical at less cost .

Ratings , specs , tech, price etc doesn’t matter when they don’t translate into actual experience.

Pokémon name and Chevrolet names something that Škoda has been using since the Rapid, should have come up with something new for these limited editions or should have launched an ‘Yeti edition’ as a tribute to the OG Yeti maybe with new colour options like the brown that was available with the Yeti.
Why is the Slavia not getting any of this limited editions has the focus completely shifted to compact SUV’s/Crossovers at least VW has the GT line for Virtus.

A lot of misses from Skoda/VW are actually solvable. However the ASS issues and long term reliability concern is a rotten tomato now in the Skoda offering

If they can solve for this than nothing stops from Skoda/VW hitting the roof in terms of the number of sales. Cruise control is a big miss, I strongly agree.

Oh right! Thanks! I listen to podcasts randomly during drives, but can't for the life of me remember which ones I'm listening to xD. Yeah, I listened to their Maruti podcasts and they're pretty in-depth, explaining even the engineering aspects of strategic decisions.