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Guwahati: Cars, cars everywhere, but not a place to park. With more than 600 new cars added to its roads every day, Delhi desperately needs an answer to its parking woes. Could Mizoram’s example provide a solution? The northeastern state has taken an unusual decision to tame traffic snarls, especially in its capital Aizawl, a hill town with narrow roads, which has one of the highest car-to-people ratios in the country.

The Mizoram Motor Vehicles Rules have been amended and a notification issued to the effect that, from August 31, any vehicle bought without providing proof of parking space shall not be registered. The diktat applies to vehicles bought by government departments too.

“Aizawl has too many vehicles for comfort, and we have found that cars parked along the roads are largely responsible for the frequent traffic snarls,” said Mizoram transport secretary P. Lalthlengliana.

“The notification is aimed at easing vehicular congestion,” he added. Lalthlengliana said the new rule would apply to all vehicles and, starting with Aizawl, would gradually be enforced across the state.

Rahul Karmakar
Hindustan Times

Mumbai: Volkswagen’s Polo is struggling to pick up pace. Reason: higher-than-expected demand. Component shortages and quality issues with some vendors have forced the German carmaker to run up three-to-four month waiting period for its compact car, prompting some potential customers to drive away in rival products such as Ford Figo, Hyundai i10, GM Beat and Maruti Swift, people familiar with the development say.

Blame it on Volkswagen’s inability to anticipate demand. High demand for Polo has put the vendors under pressure to ramp up production, leading to quality concerns over parts, a person close to the development said on condition of anonymity. Volkswagen India spokesperson was not available for comment.

One company official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that there is a shortage of major components. “For instance, we are unable to get enough supply of tyres, which we source from local manufacturers,” the person said. “The worry is that by putting pressure on vendors, there could be huge quality issues.”

Dealers say this is helping rival products. “We have seen a lot of enquiries by customers who have opted for other brands in the segment,” said a Mumbai-based General Motors dealer.

Polo is Volkswagen’s most ambitious launch in India so far, priced aggressively to gain a foothold in the compact car segment that accounts for more than 70% of the overall passenger market in the country.

But the company did not anticipate monthly demand of about 2,500 vehicles and its vendors were slow to ramp up capacity.

Higher demand for the top-end variant also surprised the company, the Volkswagen official said. It was expecting bigger demand for the comfort line, or mid-segment variant. This forced Volkswagen to change its production accordingly and put pressure on vendors supplying parts for the top-end version. “Interior components and door sides are the ones facing some quality issues,” said the official.

Polo, launched in March 2010, has local content of 55%. During April-June, Volkswagen India sold 3,742 Polos. Maruti-Suzuki sold 1.7 lakh small cars, including Alto,Wagon R, Zen Estilo, Swift, Ritz and A Star, during the same period units. Hyundai sold 74,059 units of Santro, Getz, i10 and i20, while Ford sold 18,495 units of Fusion and Figo. And Tata Motors sold 26,507 Indicas.

Meanwhile, despite the four-month long waiting, Volkswagen is set to introduce a 1.6 litre petrol Polo next month along with a petrol and diesel Vento, its larger sedan.

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New Delhi: In an unprecedented move to defend market share, the country’s largest carmaker Maruti Suzuki India will launch five cars in CNG version in a single day in the second week of next month.

The company, whose market share has come down below 50 per cent in the quarter ended June for the first time in its history, will unleash factory-fitted CNG options of its best selling Alto, compact cars Estilo and WagonR, multi-purpose vehicle Eeco and mid-sized sedan SX4.

“The CNG models will be very important in our portfolio. We are the first company to come out with factory-fitted CNG cars and we will have the first mover’s advantage in the market,” MSI Chief General Manager (Marketing) Shashank Srivastava told reporters here.

In the April-June quarter, MSI’s market share fell to 47.59 per cent from earlier over 55 per cent in the 15 lakh units per year domestic car segment. It had sold 2,06,377 units during the quarter in a total market of 4,33,641 units.

The company has decided to launch all the five versions on a single day in the second week of August because there is no particular segment for CNG cars unlike other models, which can be specified into different strata, Srivastava said.

“It is the launch of a technology, not the cars. It is the concept of factory-fitted CNG models,” he added.

Besides, MSI will launch a two new versions of its small car Alto on August 4 with a 1.0 litre K-series engine.

The Alto is the best selling car model in India averaging over 20,000 units per month. The company has sold nearly 14 lakh units since its launch in September 2000.

“We are expecting about 25 per cent increase in Alto’s sales after the launch of the new variant — AltoK10,” Srivastava said, adding the first time buyers are gradually going for more sophisticated and feature-oriented models.

In April, MSI had introduced BS IV compliant Alto on the existing 800cc F Series engine and this model will continue.

When asked about the possible price of the new Alto, he said: “There is a huge gap between the top model of existing Alto and the base version of Estilo. The base variant of AltoK10 may be priced between this range.”

The existing Alto is priced between Rs 2.29 lakh and Rs 2.81 lakh (ex-showroom Delhi), while the Estilo starts at Rs 3.20 lakh and goes up to Rs 4.10 lakh.

AltoK10 will have a mileage of 20.2 kilometer per litre as per Automotive Research Association of India standards.

The company currently offers retro-fitted CNG versions in Alto. Besides, it also offers dual fuel mode in M800 and Omni, which are available in LPG-cum-petrol variants also. Earlier WagonR was also coming with a LPG variant, but MSI stopped producing it after launching the new WagonR.

PTI
See this story in: The Economic Times (Web Edition)

Check out the exciting teasers for Alto K10 as they are about to splashed all over the television…

Mumbai: Japanese automobile major Toyota will launch its new small car ‘Etios’ in December this year and sales will begin in January next year, a top company official said.

“We are setting up a new facility for our new car, ‘Etios’, which will be completed soon and the production will start a little ahead of December. We will launch the car in December and the sales will start in January next year,” Toyota Kirloskar Motor Private Ltd Deputy Managing Director Sandeep Singh told reporters here on the sidelines of a boot camp conducted for owners of its Fortuner SUV on the outskirts of Mumbai.

The company has invested Rs 3,200 crore to set up a new facility for production of the small car, with an initial capacity of 70,000 cars per annum, he said, adding that the company has utilised internal accruals for the investment.

The capacity of the new facility can be extended up to 2,00,000 cars per annum in two years. The company will produce 65,000-70,000 cars in the first year, he said.

The price of the new car will be above Rs 5 lakh. The company is looking for local components suppliers for the new car, he said.

Toyota is looking at exporting the small car from India to various overseas markets, which is likely to start within the next two years, Singh said.

The company is, at present, using the full capacity of its existing plant, with an output of 73,000 vehicles per annum. Next year, it will go up to 80,000, he said.

Innova is Toyota’s best selling vehicle, with 48,000 units sold every annum, followed by Altis with 13,000 and Fortuner with 9,000, he said.