[shancz]

Originally Posted by GTO

- The marketing head of a car company once told me that safety-conscious customers are also less price sensitive. Research indicated that they will pay more for safety. Offering it only on the top variant is a way to extract the maximum money from them.

- Maruti offered ABS as an add-on at one time. I don't remember the exact percentage, but less than 10% of customers (I think it was like 2% or so) paid the extra 20,000 rupees or so for the ABS variant.

Maruti's optional was a good deal but lack of awareness about safety caused some indirect issues to people who wanted to take it but the process was weird.
In situations like this I would prefer a dedicated model even if expensive, confirming your first point
My experience here :

Originally Posted by shancz

Well, Maruti did have an optional version. When I had to buy the wagonR I went for the VXi(O) which had ABS and dual airbags. The dealer told that he didn't have an ETA since Maruti will make and dispatch that model only after it has a booking of 100 cars across India and that dealer(largest in the city) didn't have any other orders. Was it a lie, I don't know but since we had to get the car ASAP we went with what we had. But till date in my city I have just seen 1 wagonR with the ABS badging although I can't recall the registration state.

[gkveda]

May be because manufacturers may think, if all safety features are included in lower Variant cars, what else remain for top variant?

There are hardly anything left to include and rise the price significantly.

[for_cars1]

One more aspect from the manufacturer's point of view is that offering a optional safety pack with every variant of a model simply increases the permutation and combination and leads to higher manufacturing costs.

In the low cost, mass-market, highly competitive segments with lower margins, higher profits are achieved by economies of scale and more homogeneous models rather than too many variants at every stage.
Our market sales trend clearly shows that higher variants contribute to the lion's share of sales, So its easier and more profitable to package the added safety features and sell it off in the top variants.

[NevGin]

Originally Posted by Carpainter

...I'd still like to know what would be the cost and reliability of re installation of airbags at dealership level after an accident.

This has been my experience with VW during the 2014 or 2015 timeframe. Each air bag module for the Vento was 80K for replacement. Those 2 airbags along with the damage to the car (which incidentally looked as though nothing much had happened to it) was so high, that the insurance company debated for 2 weeks whether or not to write off the car or then pay for it to get fixed.

[tirumalavoleti]

Absolutely agree on this and echoes with my heart.

There should always be safety pack(air bags, ESP, disc brakes) compared to luxury feature pack.

Taking a base variant and providing the safety pack would attract customers who are safety conscious. For the mass market, the lower trims anyways exists. For the feature liking crowd there would be higher trims with luxury features(Bose sound system, Panoramic sunroof, touch screen ICE)

Currently TATA harrier has XZ with 6 airbags and with out sun roof. Such variants should be available for customers to decide

[V.Narayan]

Originally Posted by zapstar

I see a lot of cars where most safety features are only available on the top-end trim. You may not need most bells and whistles, but this indirectly forces a safety-conscious customer to upgrade to a top-end trim even when they don't need many these extras.

Examples that I can recollect from the top of my mind are:

1. Rear disc brakes in Toyota Yaris.
2. More airbags in Innova Crysta.

I'm guessing if they can put 6/7 airbags in the top end trim, it is not impossible for them to put them in the base trim either.

I can understand where this might not be applicable in certain situations, like ESC being available only with DCT in Kia Sonet.

What about affordability.

By putting in more features into a car we are denying its purchase to many who could have afforded it with basic safety features but cannot with a full load of safety features. Safety features of a car are not just the modern ones of airbags, disc brakes, ABS etc. The shell of the car is its biggest safety feature and provides protection from rain, cold, sleet, heat, dust, falling off, minor glancing hits, oil skids etc. A citizen moving up from a scooter carrying a family of 4 to a Maruti Alto is voting for safety. If that Maruti Alto came only with a full load of safety features as defined above pushing the cost up by say Rs 50,000, for arguments sake, we are denying tens of thousands of first time car buyer entrants at the ground floor the ability to move up from an overcrowded scooter or jam packed three wheeler to a car.

Safety is not just about having everything that technology provides. Safety is also about affordability and allowing folks lower down on the economic ladder, within each economic segment, to climb up. For that the first step should be low enough to step on to.

Safety is important, safety is valuable but what is safety is a function of where your starting point is and what can your pocket bear. My pushback to what I call the recent trend of the 'Safety Arrogance Club' is why have you not bought a Volvo, and stick to only Volvo. The reason is affordability. The same logic holds good for the others lower down on the scale.

PS: The greatest safety - drive sensibly within speed limits.

[sentra26]

The government has proposed mandatory airbags for models 2019 and it should be in effect from April 2021. Of course, two front airbags are nothing and an eeco fitted with 2 airbags still means nothing. Also, it still peeves me that many of the brands (include Hyundai, Toyota) selling in India have different specs for the Indian markets. Even their Asian market specs (made in thailand for the region) are crash tested. Crysta had a 5 star in ASEAN NCAP crash tests but I am sure the Indian spec might be wanting in a thing or two.

PS: I learnt how to drive in a premier padmini (almost 28 years ago) . I would be pretty scared to even sit inside one now.

[McLaren Rulez]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

What about affordability.

By putting in more features into a car we are denying its purchase to many who could have afforded it with basic safety features but cannot with a full load of safety features.

This argument is true for the absolute basic cars e.g. Alto, Eon but in almost all other cases, I'm afraid the problem is that manufacturers actively make safety unaffordable by limiting those features to top variants.

For example, additional airbags, ESP, rear wash and wipe - these things don't cost that much. Maruti used to offer safety packs for Rs.20,000 (the (O) versions) on all their models. You got ABS and dual airbags for that price. Notwithstanding Maruti's other safety related woes, I always thought that was a superb move! Today, manufacturers bundle safety features with a panoramic sunroof, alloys, bigger engine, leather seats, touchscreen ICE etc. which forces those who care about safety to spend quite a lot more.

In the end, the market decides what it wants but as a buyer, I do hope that we get to the point where I can get all the safety kit without having to buy these luxury features.

[landcruiser123]

Just to clarify, OPs point is about optional safety packs in lower variants, NOT making safety features standard and increasing prices.

Originally Posted by Raghu M

+1 to that. I know only one friend who owns a Ritz ZXi, have seen very few ones of the top trim. It mostly ends at VXi.

Comparing a VXI(o) vs VXI is different from VXI vs ZXI. The ZXI variant could cost INR 80k to a lakh more which is expensive compared to the additional INR 20k for the (o) variant?

If I can have safety features for 20k more, why not?

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

What about affordability.
...A citizen moving up from a scooter carrying a family of 4 to a Maruti Alto is voting for safety. If that Maruti Alto came only with a full load of safety features as defined above pushing the cost up by say Rs 50,000, for arguments sake, we are denying tens of thousands of first time car buyer entrants...

Sorry to say, but I think the OP is misunderstood. He isn't talking about making all the safety features standard on the base variants. He's merely wondering why there aren't optional variants for safety when the customer is willing to pay more.

For example:
Let us assume the cheapest S-Presso LXI is INR 4 lakh on road and the VXI(o) with all the safety kit is INR 6 lakhs on road. What if MSIL also offers an LXI(o) variant [with additional safety kit present in the VXI(o)] at INR 4.5 lakh on road? (sans Android Auto, body coloured bumpers, tachometer etc)

I agree that there'll be price sensitive customers who won't want to spend anything more than 4 lakhs. But what if my parents were buying a commuter car? They want an entry level car with decent safety. Do they want to spend INR 6 lakh for additional bells and whistles when they can get the same safety features at INR 4.5 lakh? No. They have a nice Ciaz for all the comforts. If MSIL implements what the OP is saying, they aren't taking options away from buyers, but rather giving them more options.


I know many who were forced to buy the Crysta ZX over the VX or GX as they wanted the curtain airbags. Why can't customers have the optional safety pack for lower trims? That is what we're debating on this thread. From manufacturer greed to difficulty in production, I'm sure there are a lot of reasons.

[arunrajk81]

Originally Posted by DicKy

They offer.
No demand.
They remove the option.

These scenarios are caused by lack of proper laws.
If there is a minimum safety features mandatory to sell every new car in India that includes ABS, Airbags etc, then this scenario never would have happened.

Also it should happen in National level. I know some states tried to mandate ABS and Speed governor for all public passenger vehicles which never got implemented properly.

I think car manufacturers might be lobbying against these since for them the base price go up.

[pganapathy]

There is a very simple reason why safety packs aren't even a consideration in company offers. Look at a city like Bangalore/Bombay and see how many people actually use their seatbelt for reasons other than avoiding a fine. A very small percentage indeed. If people don't even use the most basic safety element in their car, what are the chances they will opt for ABS and airbags with our 'kitna deti hai' mentality.

[zapstar]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

What about affordability.

This is exactly my point. You can have a base variant and an optional safety pack. Why do you have to shell out a few more lacs just to get a safer car (even Maruti Alto)? You could pay just a few thousand extra the safety kit instead of all the bells and whistles. Isn't that far more affordable?

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

PS: The greatest safety - drive sensibly within speed limits.

You could end up in an accident even if it's not your fault and you're still within the speed limits. Please don't discount safety features so easily.

Originally Posted by landcruiser123

Just to clarify, OPs point is about optional safety packs in lower variants, NOT making safety features standard and increasing prices.

Thank you for clarifying. This is the point I was trying to get across.

[Nalin1]

Originally Posted by zapstar

This is exactly my point. You can have a base variant and an optional safety pack. Why do you have to shell out a few more lacs just to get a safer car (even Maruti Alto)? You could pay just a few thousand extra the safety kit instead of all the bells and whistles. Isn't that far more affordable?

Our manufacturers consider safety features (both active and passive safety features) as more 'features' on the car. We may be shouting from the rooftops that safety features can't be clubbed with the gizmos and offered on the top variants with this line-

Whoever needs them need to pay more!.

This is nice thread and well worth discussing, but can't see any hope on the horizon that this will become a reality !.

[anand.shankar]

We are seeing a slow transformation of our Auto market. Slowly it will change, both public, manufacturer perception of safe cars. As long as we don't expect overnight change we are surely getting there.

Manufacturers like Tata already are offering XX'S' versions with the safety pack added. Of course some options were available at least a decade ago, but surely were half hearted attempts. The Maruti 'O' versions were the best examples, this kit usually added the ABS + Airbags or one of it, I guess it added Alloys too in some models. In 2011, I can recall the MS Sale rep quite confidently telling me to skip the Option addon and the Zxi version of the Swift as Airbags are useless in city and expensive to Fix etc, not to forget the extra 1 month wait to get one. Similar comments will not go down as well today, in most cases at least, since consumer awareness is much higher that what it used to be.