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Old 9th October 2009, 18:23   #136
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just did some research on the Holden site, this car is supposed to be "Global small car" so we cant crib about the space. It is upto GM to launch it in the right category if they want to hoodwink Indian market and want to brand it as something which it is not then it is there problem.

Also typically a Captiva in Australia sells for 40000 AUD and a Cruze sells for 20000 AUD, by that logic the price of a Cruze in India should be sub 10 lakhs as the Captiva is a CKD and sells for around 20 lakhs (the AWD) whereas Cruze is bieng manufactured here.
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Old 9th October 2009, 18:34   #137
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Nice one tsk1979 really enjoyed reading the review.
The text inside the pics, nice touch.

Hope GM gets the price right.
This is one car I'd like to buy even if the price is too high for me to afford.

Not in a long while that a car makes me thinking of "buying".

Well the other one is i20 just because of the list of equipment and the design.
Alas its a Hyundai.
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Old 9th October 2009, 21:38   #138
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Quote:
Originally Posted by inwester View Post
In South Africa cheapest Civic is as expensive as the most expensive Cruze.

In Australia cheapest Cruze is a full 1/3rd cheaper than the cheapest Civic.

In the U. K cheapest Cruze is a full 4000 pounds or roughly 25% cheaper than the cheapest Civic.

Which means Civic in India should be priced at 9.5 - 10.5 lakhs at the max (okay, I give some consideration for the diesel, but to be honest it's a cheap car with an engine which has been around, horrendous transmission and poor suspension set-up not to mention the plastics). So please refrain from saying things like this is comparable to a top end Civic or to a Hyundai Sonata which is in a completely different segment all-together. Compare it to Optra.

Good luck to people who buy this car!

From a disgruntled Optra owner (since 2004).
yeah agreed!! but there things are different! tax structures are different! you have to take into account all of this!!

you will be surprised to know about the base price of honda civic in USA is 15K which is 15k X 50 INR = 7.5 lacs. and you get 6 airbags abs, ebd basically all safety features but no power windows, no AC, lolz

the comparable version to india spec comes at 18K = 9 lac at most!!! completely loaded version guys!!

and they sell this at the 14 lac price here in India! and skip vital safety features like TCS,ESP side and curtain airbags. navigation sunroof ! price is more with less features this is where they make money!! this is how margins are kept and cash registers running!! no wonder they love the great Indian emerging market for cars!!
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Old 9th October 2009, 22:06   #139
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At steady-state, Cruze will possibly be priced below Civic/Altis in India, but not before milking all those who screamed that at 14L, Cruze will be a steal deal.
If you seriously want a better Cruze at a much cheaper price, wait for at least one year.
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Old 10th October 2009, 00:03   #140
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sabynag View Post
At steady-state, Cruze will possibly be priced below Civic/Altis in India, but not before milking all those who screamed that at 14L, Cruze will be a steal deal.
If you seriously want a better Cruze at a much cheaper price, wait for at least one year.
+1 to that....... also will like people to take into account a ckd captiva is sub 20 Lakhs.. so there is no way that this car should be priced over 10 L
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Old 10th October 2009, 01:29   #141
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Caramelo View Post
yeah agreed!! but there things are different! tax structures are different! you have to take into account all of this!!

you will be surprised to know about the base price of honda civic in USA is 15K which is 15k X 50 INR = 7.5 lacs. and you get 6 airbags abs, ebd basically all safety features but no power windows, no AC, lolz

the comparable version to india spec comes at 18K = 9 lac at most!!! completely loaded version guys!!

and they sell this at the 14 lac price here in India! and skip vital safety features like TCS,ESP side and curtain airbags. navigation sunroof ! price is more with less features this is where they make money!! this is how margins are kept and cash registers running!! no wonder they love the great Indian emerging market for cars!!

If you had seen my location on the id it says I'm in the U. S. I'm not asking it to be priced on par with the U. S, its simply not going to happen. If you know the U. S market then you also know that Suzuki Forenza (Optra in the U. S, discontinued since 2008) was selling at 10-12k when Civic started at 15-16k.

All I said was that pricing should be relative to the other cars in India that sell in the same segment, which would mean Civic, Corolla, Jetta etc. So the relative price should reflect some 25% discount, as it's a Chevy and definitely an inferior car (in terms of brand value, reliability, resale value for sure, and god knows what else) to the above mentioned models which have been best sellers in the industry for over 30 years, at least in all mature auto markets.

As an Optra owner I can vouch that their parts are cheaper compared to Honda, but there are a lot of quality issues and sometimes availability of parts is pathetic. I had to wait some 1-2 years just because they didn't have certain spare parts which are not supposed to fail in the first few years of ownership.

That said, the only good thing about this car is the engine, although old and shared in many models, its a decent engine but coupled with terrible transmission. They just can't replicate transmissions that are mated with the Japanese cars.
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Old 10th October 2009, 11:20   #142
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Relative price positioning as in the international market is sometimes very hard to maintain in a country like India where government's share is often more than that of the car manufacturer in the final price of the car. Govt share (tax) is not uniform across all car brands but are hostile to those who have low level of localization.

Companies that are effective in containing the tax component in their car price are better positioned to offer value to their customers - take for example, maruti, hyundai, tata and mahindra. On the other hand, low-volume car brands are at a disadvantage because their scale doesn't permit them to make products locally and hence they end up adding a lot of import duties to their car prices.
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Old 10th October 2009, 11:21   #143
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Just read in Economic times today that GM has already secured 1000+ bookings for CRUZE before the launch. Considering the timing and segment, it is impressive!
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Old 10th October 2009, 11:52   #144
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ranc View Post
just did some research on the Holden site, this car is supposed to be "Global small car" so we cant crib about the space. It is upto GM to launch it in the right category if they want to hoodwink Indian market and want to brand it as something which it is not then it is there problem.

Also typically a Captiva in Australia sells for 40000 AUD and a Cruze sells for 20000 AUD, by that logic the price of a Cruze in India should be sub 10 lakhs as the Captiva is a CKD and sells for around 20 lakhs (the AWD) whereas Cruze is bieng manufactured here.
Hmm, its actually a compact. Just like the Corolla. But interior space is definitely less than the corolla
Quote:
Originally Posted by yzfrj View Post
Nice one tsk1979 really enjoyed reading the review.
The text inside the pics, nice touch.

Hope GM gets the price right.
This is one car I'd like to buy even if the price is too high for me to afford.

Not in a long while that a car makes me thinking of "buying".

Well the other one is i20 just because of the list of equipment and the design.
Alas its a Hyundai.
So is being a Hyundai a negative thing?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Caramelo View Post
yeah agreed!! but there things are different! tax structures are different! you have to take into account all of this!!

you will be surprised to know about the base price of honda civic in USA is 15K which is 15k X 50 INR = 7.5 lacs. and you get 6 airbags abs, ebd basically all safety features but no power windows, no AC, lolz

the comparable version to india spec comes at 18K = 9 lac at most!!! completely loaded version guys!!

and they sell this at the 14 lac price here in India! and skip vital safety features like TCS,ESP side and curtain airbags. navigation sunroof ! price is more with less features this is where they make money!! this is how margins are kept and cash registers running!! no wonder they love the great Indian emerging market for cars!!
Yup, at 14L, I will not call it VFM. The Sonata Embera makes more sense and is more fully loaded and much more comfortable too!
Quote:
Originally Posted by sabynag View Post
At steady-state, Cruze will possibly be priced below Civic/Altis in India, but not before milking all those who screamed that at 14L, Cruze will be a steal deal.
If you seriously want a better Cruze at a much cheaper price, wait for at least one year.
Spot on. People who buy it now will lose 2-3 lakhs in the price when GM introduces new prices. Look at what happened to early adopters of Spark
Quote:
Originally Posted by 1-Testosterone View Post
Just read in Economic times today that GM has already secured 1000+ bookings for CRUZE before the launch. Considering the timing and segment, it is impressive!
This is quite surprising. However what matters is how many bookings a month they can sustain over a long time period. Initial Euphorea, and promotional activity does translate to high initial bookings, look at the Jazz
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Old 10th October 2009, 15:24   #145
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Quote:
Originally Posted by tsk1979 View Post
This is quite surprising. However what matters is how many bookings a month they can sustain over a long time period. Initial Euphorea, and promotional activity does translate to high initial bookings, look at the Jazz
You're right. But then Jazz was undone by high price (in the region of Honda City - A leader in this segment by far!). For a petrol hatch, people just were not impressed. Let's see how people pit it against Civic, Altis and Octavia/Laura. For me the biggest dampeners will be turbo lag and "not-so-good" plastics. Low ground clearance won't be an issue (since our roads are improving day by day). The biggest positives would be class leading equipment, brute of an engine and of course, mileage (which is so important to an Indian customer in any segment). Pricing will hold the key though and I hope GM will learn from it's past mistakes.
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Old 11th October 2009, 00:22   #146
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Well same is the problem with Cruze. Its a car same size as Chevy Cobalt, Hyundai Verna etc., yet priced higher than Altis/Civic etc.,
So there is a good change that Chevrolet will go for a price reduction in the future, as it did for Spark.
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Old 11th October 2009, 07:36   #147
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The Cruze sells for $23,500 here in Australia (Victoria atleast) hence GM should be able to price it competitively.

I read some where that the dead pedal is absent in the car because by removing it, Holden / GM were able to attain the maximum 5 star safety rating for the car.
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Old 11th October 2009, 08:28   #148
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Caramelo View Post
yeah agreed!! but there things are different! tax structures are different! you have to take into account all of this!!

you will be surprised to know about the base price of honda civic in USA is 15K which is 15k X 50 INR = 7.5 lacs. and you get 6 airbags abs, ebd basically all safety features but no power windows, no AC, lolz

the comparable version to india spec comes at 18K = 9 lac at most!!! completely loaded version guys!!

and they sell this at the 14 lac price here in India! and skip vital safety features like TCS,ESP side and curtain airbags. navigation sunroof ! price is more with less features this is where they make money!! this is how margins are kept and cash registers running!! no wonder they love the great Indian emerging market for cars!!
I suppose you'll pay all the import duties, central excise taxes, VAT, state sales taxes and God knows what else all by yourself after you buy your Civic for 9L?

You have to realize that the U.S is a tax haven for automobile manufacturing. Honda also manufactures everything locally and all parts are procured locally. They sell around 50,000 Civics a month in the US. Even the Alto, which is the highest selling car across all segments in India, does only 1/5th that number. Thus 100% localization is not financially viable. And yes, it's a catch-22.

Last edited by ImmortalZ : 11th October 2009 at 08:30.
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Old 11th October 2009, 08:57   #149
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So after the initial excitement, looks like everyone feels 14Lakhs is expensive for this thing. Some even want it less than 10Lakhs. As for me 13L OTR shud be great and justified price. I love Jetta diesel in this space. So if I have to move from VW to Chevy, it better be atleast 1.5 Lakhs less.

If VW drops the price of Jetta, things shud get really interesting here. We need good diesels in the 10 - 15L range. Someone should offer a diesel at 12Lakhs - thats a great price point.
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Old 11th October 2009, 11:07   #150
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ImmortalZ View Post
They sell around 50,000 Civics a month in the US. Even the Alto, which is the highest selling car across all segments in India, does only 1/5th that number.
No manufacturer sells 50,000 of a single model in the U. S. Did you mean to say 15,000 Civics a month, that's more like it.

Auto Sales - Markets Data Center - WSJ.com
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