[sahakar]

Tata has only two options -

1) Shelve and rebuild

2) Do fire sale pricing

After all the efforts they must have put on this refresh, they better take the second option and quick.

Else, once Mahindra cranks up the volumes early next year, I guess you will see as many XUVs as Altos on the road

Cheers

[Chalu]

Oh dear o dear. God save Tata

If priced lower by 2 lakhs compared to XUV by variant to variant with all the same features than it might survive

[safari_lover]

I don't understand this eagerness to write obituaries for the Merlin even before its birth!

First of all, Merlin is not a competition to the XUV but may be to the Scorpio. Tata's competition to the XUV is the Aria, like it or leave it.

If the prices of XUV could be hiked in near future, will it still be as attractive a buy as it is today? I still remember reading reactions on Team-BHP when the XUV was unveiled. General opinion was it looked bad and Aria looks much better. But then everything changed overnight, literally, after the prices were announced.

Secondly, we have all seen the vehicles that created a huge hype at the launch but were unable to sustain it in the long term. Nano and Etios come to my mind immediately.

Let's wait till the Merlin is launched and then discuss its fate.

[JagMan]

Originally Posted by safari_lover

Let's wait till the Merlin is launched and then discuss its fate.

Thanks for biting the bullet. Wanted to say exactly what you said but... anyways...

Im hoping that what ever tata had up its sleeve before xuv is still very relevent even after xuv....

[CARDEEP]

The interiors look good to me, except the faux wood panels.

The Merlin is not a competition to XUV. This one sits a class lower, but it is much better than Scorpio. Hope the fit & finish is better than ever.

[shortbread]

Finally a dash/interiors that does not conform to the Indian Beige rule or even worser brown!!

The lack of a music system, gadgetry, LCD screen etc... mean that there will be basic variants for the more price conscious customers, which is great. Although dual airbags look standard, another plus.

The Merlin has a lot of potential especially at the right pricing.

[teamveevee]

Originally Posted by safari_lover

I don't understand this eagerness to write obituaries for the Merlin even before its birth!

First of all, Merlin is not a competition to the XUV but may be to the Scorpio. Tata's competition to the XUV is the Aria, like it or leave it..

I do not think even Aria is a competitor to XUV. Tata is yet to develop an Cross over ( a SUV look on a Sedan platform), even though there were talks of developing a corss over on Manza platform in the past. But we have not heard any scoop on this yet. Considering the amount of time TM took to develop Aria, even if they start to develop a Cross over, it will take another 3-4 years. So i dont think there will be any direct competition from TM to XUV500 for a while. The case is different for Toyota. They should be able to bring a similar vehicle (Toyota Highlander etc) from international markets, but again adapting the same to Indian conditions will take some time, at least an year. Also we have not heard about such plans from Toyota +yet.
So in reality, there wont be any true competition for XUV in the near future.

[Durango Dude]

I think M&M has just runaway with the XUV, which Tata can only hope to match with the Merlin, given its interior pics is not great shakes. Pricing of the XUV is the veritable last nail in the coffin, more like a death blow.

[JagMan]

Originally Posted by teamveevee

Tata is yet to develop an Cross over ( a SUV look on a Sedan platform),

uhh... the Aria IS considered a cross over.

[swiftnfurious]

My take on some of the posts in the last 2 pages.

I doubt Safari in any form can give a competition to Scorpio any more - the way I understand, Scorp outsells Safari in a 4:1 or 3:1 ratio! Very very hard for Safari to re-gain share unless a seriously good product is pitched against Scorp at the same price levels. So this means that they have to price Merlin at the same band and not at a higher level which will enter into XUV territory.

Now how can they price Merlin competitively? Scrap normal Safari & bring Merlin at those prices. Will people accept a new look Safari which is cheaper? Yeah, may be; if it is worth the cash over the Scorp.

If they are going to pitch Merlin against the XUV 500 price wise, I am not sure how positive is the response going to be. But one thing for sure - XUV kicked the butts of a number of cars with those insanely yummy price - Right from their own Scorp - Safari - Aria; and yeah, some more cars in the price bracket too !

However good a product Merlin is going to be, I seriously doubt TATA can boast of a premium to sell it pitching against or over XUV & 99% I believe that the price of Merlin is going to make or break the deal.

Edit:: Now the trick here is the delivery woes of XUV 500 ! How many people are willing to wait for this product for 4 months? Such people might move to Merlin if it's a good value proposition, though Merlin has relatively less equipment. And when XUV 500 open booking all over India, am sure the waiting periods could run up to an year or so - which could turn in favor of Merlin, if TATA takes the right call in product positioning.

[kaks15]

Originally Posted by safari_lover

I don't understand this eagerness to write obituaries for the Merlin even before its birth!

I agree with your statement about not writing off a product even before its launch
But another look at the posts suggests that people are also discussing tata strategies. That ain't bad.

Originally Posted by safari_lover

First of all, Merlin is not a competition to the XUV but may be to the Scorpio. Tata's competition to the XUV is the Aria, like it or leave it.

Territory manager for ARIA/UV at tata dealer ships think otherwise. Visited a dealer at gurgaon and a dealer at delhi, 2 different guys both TMs at tata, said that ARIA is a class above XUV and actual competition for XUV is safari which is 2-3L cheaper. They would not like to compare aria with xuv but would rather compare it with crv captiva fortuner etc. My point is if they are saying safari is the competition for xuv then obviously merlin would also be a refined competition for xuv so its not wrong to compare them.

Originally Posted by safari_lover

If the prices of XUV could be hiked in near future, will it still be as attractive a buy as it is today? I still remember reading reactions on Team-BHP when the XUV was unveiled. General opinion was it looked bad and Aria looks much better. But then everything changed overnight, literally, after the prices were announced.

We have seen ugly ducklings (swift and dzire) sell, we have seen dented hatch (ritz) sell, we now see the distorted cheetah grabbing loads of bookings. Wont comment whether xuv would be a sensible buy if prices rise but one thing is for sure if merlin is launched in the similar price range as xuv, people are bound to compare them because lets face it every body have their budget and plan out the purchase by looking at alternatives available in the budget or nearby range.

Originally Posted by safari_lover

Secondly, we have all seen the vehicles that created a huge hype at the launch but were unable to sustain it in the long term. Nano and Etios come to my mind immediately.

Let's wait till the Merlin is launched and then discuss its fate.

Again I agree let us discuss the fate of merlin after it is launched and wait for xuv to live upto its hype before declaring it a game changer. In the meanwhile we can discuss what tata or m&m should/could/would do so that we can learn a bit from each others pool of knowledge

[VeluM]

Obituaries for the Merlin are being written before its launch because of the position that Tata is supposed to be taking (based on our insider-provided-info). With the XUV and Safari currently in a similar price range, the Safari doesn't make sense.

So if the Merlin were to be launched at the same price as the existing Safari's GX and VX versions, then it will still not makes sense as there are features that are not available and not expected to be available in the Merlin (eg. ACC with blower controls for all rows, front facing last row, Steering mounted controls, rake and reach adjustment for steering, Auto headlamps and wipers, etc).

With the recently posted picture, the interiors of the Merlin don't look substantially different from the Safari or as modern as the XUV. And let's face it, the only improvements that count to the majority are those that can be seen. The new front suspension will attract existing Safari owners because they know what the old one felt like. If the chassis is indeed the new Aria chassis, it again makes little difference when the skin (body) looks the same for the most part.

Safari brought down to the Scorpio price-range will compete well with the Scorpio, but the Merlin in the XUV's price range just won't, except in case of a huge blunder by Mahindra in their future pricing strategy.

[shortbread]

A Safari is a 5 seater and Scorpio is 7+. This is the primary reason why the Safari will never garner the Scorpio taxi/fleet sales. That itself is huge nos; look around you and there are plenty of scorpio yellow boards doing rounds. Of course the Safari's historic issues never did it any favors.

Other than this the Safari is better than the Scorpio in every other department, hands down. The Scorpio was never a competition for it.

As far as the Merlin is concerned, these 'half baked expert' comments predicting doom and other nonsense based on a single dashboards image from a Merlin prototype are immature to say the least. One doesn't know:

• What the cars features are
• How it drives
• What the bloody pricing is
• How it really looks in metal

The messy front end and appalling interior colours did not stop the XUV from it initial bookings craze, did it??!! These aren't the main factors that decide a vehicles success.

While the naysayers will want to shout out obscenities at the Merlin come what may, I hope rest of the sensible folk prevailing in this thread wait till the car comes out!!

[condor]

Originally Posted by kaks15

Territory manager for ARIA/UV at tata dealer ships think otherwise. .. 2 different guys both TMs at tata, said that ARIA is a class above XUV and actual competition for XUV is safari which is 2-3L cheaper.

It's their job ! They are expected to promote their own product, and not put it down. They will naturally say that Aria is above the XUV.

Originally Posted by kaks15

They would not like to compare aria with xuv but would rather compare it with crv captiva fortuner etc.

XUV is also being compared to the same vehicles

[mayankjha1806]

Originally Posted by heatednemz

Hi,
not a regular poster on team-bhp, but I do frequent this site very often.
since I have taken so much from this website. Its only fair I give something back in return. Here is one more picture of the interior (this time with the TATA logo). I got them through a friend . I do not know the location or time of when this was clicked.

This is a cool looking Dash, cannot comment on plastic quality and fit and finish as its just a picture and its difficult to comment unless i see it in flesh and blood.

As other have pointed out Its looking Dull, i disagree, rather than dull its looking sedate (and not flashy like XUV 5OO) and sober. Hopefully they launch soon with good Fit and finish.