Re: General Motors developing new platform for emerging markets I'm sure government would have added more tweaks to the current 4m rule by that time and it wouldn't be attractive by the time they finally get a product.
Unlike compact SUV that can at least boast of a good GC for our bad roads, the only reason these compact sedans sell so much is because of the false sense of status of owning a sedan when common man owns a hatchback. With Dzire outselling even the Alto in some months, it wouldn't be long before the sedans become too common on the road to command a premium feeling over hatchbacks.
With more feature-rich premium hatchbacks and cheaper bare-bones compact sedans flooding the market, the sedan-hatch hierarchy would soon become blurred to the level that neither would have a higher status quotient. Remember that a Maruti 800 hatchback was more desirable than an Ambassador or Premier Padmini sedan in the 80s. We might see a similar situation soon where the premium hatchbacks would be more costly than the compact sedans and in-turn command a better status.
2 years from now, we are more likely to see the rush shifted to compact SUVs as the trend, since the government turning around and improving all our roads in unlikely, which means the relevance for an SUV's ground clearance would still exist. |