[rayygeorge]

You are right by saying most of the Indian cars are automatic by means of "Chauffer driven".At the same time think about the 2-3 km less mileage the automatic gives.Most of us have never got a chance to feel an automatic.Once one one feels it,will run for that.Almost 50% of your driving starin is reduced by auto transmission.People should realise it and manufacturers should bring out auto as an option for all models and popularise it.
Ray

[Eddy]

Originally Posted by amit

Yes thats true but most cars in India anyways are automatics. By that I mean chauffer driven.

C'mon Amit, I am sure not more than 10% of Indian cars are chauffer driven.

[jesal]

i want to see pics of the auto tranny if sold anywhere in the world !

[jesal]

this is the best i could find online. if this comes in, its not the triptronic for sure. looks prehistoric, though will be fun to drive. they should give this with 150bhp and more torque. should not be that bad then. oh well

[S_budhiraj]

I dont think this car will work, reasons:-

As always Hyundai will not price it sensibly

The CRDI Sx comes around 9.3 in Delhi and Auto will atleast cost (as per past exp with hyundai) 10.5 and that will be a as that will make it into the leagues of Optra and OCti which she can never touch in terms of Quality, Class, Segment and Oomph factor

Hyundai has never priced their products sensibly, if by any chance they have to sell this, they have to outdo themselves by pricing it comp

[diffsoft]

Would love to trade my Verna manual to the automatic! I hope the auto is more refined than the one in Santro - i.e smoother than a step change!

[lamborghini]

Originally Posted by rayygeorge

You are right by saying most of the Indian cars are automatic by means of "Chauffer driven".At the same time think about the 2-3 km less mileage the automatic gives.Most of us have never got a chance to feel an automatic.Once one one feels it,will run for that.Almost 50% of your driving starin is reduced by auto transmission.People should realise it and manufacturers should bring out auto as an option for all models and popularise it.
Ray

This is really true. We have an E class which is auto. After buying it, my dad has only wanted auto cars in the house. The only reason the fiesta and skoda are manual is because there was no auto option.
Similarly, a family friend has only autos and all this after buying one automatic.
Once people get a taste, they will buy it. It's almost addictive given todays traffic.

[carzy]

Originally Posted by DirtyDan

You all know how really lousy Indian drivers are across the board. I mean generally, they stink. They make poor decisions, they do not have good control of their vehicles and they are rude-inconsiderate.

Automatic transmissions, should they become common on the roads, will tend to allow more women and more idiots to drive cars because they make driving easier for the novice. I foresee even greater chaos and mayhem out on the roads. This is just what India needs. It will be a factor in helping keep the population of India down as it will add to the number of traffic deaths.

I totally disagree. Going by what you said above, powerful vehicles like BMW, Audi etc should've also not been introduced in India because road-manners of some "illiterate" driver. Auto transmission will make life easier for everyone (There have been so many instances of cars stalling while drivers are trying to change to first gear causing a wave of honks and a mini-traffic jam), cause less stress as people will not have to keep concentrating on changing gears a gazillion times. I have driven an auto tranny most of my life and "sorely" miss the stressless environment when I'm in mumbai.
"Illiterate" drivers will be the same, no matter what you throw at them. They are the ones who need to education, you cannot expect intelligent drivers to be "deprived" of driving comforts.

You might say online banking is lousy as there are idiots waiting to pull another "fraud".. Positive Change is absolutely essential => and with that the need to tie up loose ends rather than completely dropping the idea

[narayan]

Originally Posted by V-16

You will be surprised. Try getting a pre owned one and you will know. Though the actual figures as compared to the Manual option would not be much, the market is not exactly a niche segment anymore.
I have a NHC CVT and I had a hell of a time searching for a good pre owned example. I think the new car is overpriced at almost nine lacs so I wanted a pre owned one. It took me well over two months to find a car. There were just were none available.
.

ur right.. i feel u found it difficult to get a preowned one for below reasons

1) very few are sold anyways from the showroom
2) the few that are sold are bought by the owners with the clear benefit of the auto - so many may not sell it very soon
3) because of the lack of options to upgrade segment-wise, a person with an auto , may not sell too soon

my point was purely that HYUNDAI may not achieve much by this variant

[SkyWalker]

biggest problem would be that Verna - like i10 is overpriced. with an auto it will be more so. However definitely a welcome move. We should be seeing more autos on road now.

[GTO - Touring]

Originally Posted by amit

By that I mean chauffer driven. Why should the owner care about bumper to bumper traffic and parking problems? Until Indians are going to get cheap labour, automatics aren't going to take off in India and I don't see cheap labour not being avaliable anytime in the near future. Only way round this is if Automatics are avaliable at a price thats cheaper or same as manuals.

I'd go a step further and say that automatics make sense even if your car is chauffeur-driven. Why?

1. A smoother drive : Less *jatkas* which our drivers are so famous for, lesser abuse (gear crunching, clutch riding) and no chance of over-revving in a lower gear.

2. Weekend convenience : You could still enjoy the automatic on weekend drives, or when the driver has taken a holiday.

Almost 99% of Merc's and BMW's are chauffeur-driven, yet even when a manual is offered (C Class), 95% of sales are for the automatic version.

[jeetu4444]

GUYs i myself have 3 auto cars well got hooked , very early, with my toyota crown which is six cylinder, after that i luv driving an auto. now have santro auto, honda civic auto, well once u have an auto u have hasslefree driving, infact with auto there will be less accidents, instead of concentrating on acce, brake and clutch, u have only accelerator and brake so less confusion for newbies aswell. when iam to town i always prefer the auto, driving is easy i have less stress in bumper to bumper traffic. as for mileage there is hardly any difference between auto and manual civic.

[wilful]

I have been using my CVT for over two years and have no regrets whatsoever. And a slight drop in FE - a kilometer compared to the OHC in city traffic - is more than compensated by the remarkable reduction in strain.
Once the car companies make an effort to break the negative mindset, I am certain there will be a lot of takers for this option; goes without saying that pricing has to be reasonable.
I hope that the i10 and Verna auto trannys will be out shortly and that we will have many more choices in the coming months.

[pgsagar]

Not every one employs chauffer. My brother, an IT techie, got tired of all the driving in Bangalore and hired a driver hoping things would be fine from now on. But he landed himself in other kinds of problems. The driver crashed my brother's car three times within a year, picked fights several times with other motorists, pedestrains and who not and then got into a serious altercation with a traffic cop which necessitated my brother's visit to police station to clear things up and that's when he decided to drive the car himself. I am sure an auto box won't do all that.

I think guys who have large / joint family whose 10-15 family members have to go to different laoctions of the city at different times of the day and whose cars' engines are always on ( like a commercial airliner's ) employ drivers. Politicians, businessmen, real estate guys, contractors etc fall in this category. Also these guys themselves are tough type who can pull up their erratic drivers. On the other hand guys with nuclear families, and guys who just drive to work and back do not generally employ drivers. Such guys generally happen to be doctors, IT guys, professors, executives etc. who are basically soft and gentle type as opposed to the other class described above. This class finds it difficult to handle rogueish drivers.

[V-16]

I think that purely on the basis of the stress factor getting considerably reduced, an auto option is worth its money in gold if priced appropriately.