Chennai: Nissan Motor India’s urban multi utility vehicle (MUV) is expected to be launched in August 2012, a company official said. The MUV will resemble Nissan NV 200, sold in Europe and other parts of the world , and will be pitted against Toyota Innova . The MUV will be unveiled at the Delhi Auto Expo to be held in January , the official said.

The MUV will be developed in partnership Ashok Leyland , under an existing joint venture, and will be rolled out with a Nissan badge . Earlier , the partners had launched the Dost, a 1.25-ton mini truck . The company’s city-based plant , capable of producing 2 lakh vehicles annually , will attain a capacity to produce 4 lakh vehicles by next year. Eighty per centof the vehicles manufactured at the plant are exported.

Nissan, which sold 13,000 vehicles so far this fiscal, is short of reaching its annual target of 40,000 units.

Its CFO Sunil Reikhi said , “We’re 80% on track to achievethe 2012forecast,” and expect 2013 sales to more than double.

The passenger vehicle market in India is going through a lull phase with October cars sales dropping by 23.8%. This is the biggest drop in sales since December 2000, when car sales fell 35%.

Nissan’s passenger vehicles in India are Micra and Sunny. Nissan Sunny will have its diesel version in the market by mid-2012.

Mumbai: The country’s second largest carmaker, Hyundai Motor India, has announced opening of bookings for the ‘Eon’ compact car from Saturday, October 1.

Around 13 years after launching its first model – Santro, the new small car is the company’s answer to the highest-selling car in the country, Maruti Suzuki’s Alto. On sales of around 34,000 units a month, the Alto had no competition in its segment till date.

Developed jointly by the company’s Korean and domestic R&D centres and manufactured at Hyundai’s plant near Chennai, the Eon follows the Korean carmakers ‘Fluidic Sculpture’ design philosophy. With a focus on space and fuel efficiency, it is targeted at first-time car buyers.

“Hyundai is committed to offer products with advanced technology to the Indian market. We are confident that the EON will set a new benchmark in the Indian market with regard to styling, performance, safety and convenience,” Mr H.W. Park, MD and CEO, HMIL, said.

Hyundai, which is also the largest car exporter form India, sells seven models in the country through its 330 dealers. These include the Santro, i10, i20, sedans such as the Accent, Verna, Sonata Transform and the Santa Fe SUV.

New Delhi: Car sales in India is crawling towards sub 5-percent growth, to their slowest in a decade, as rising fuel prices and higher cost of loans continue to bite, Crisil said, indicating further demand slump in one of the world’s fastest growing auto market.

The research firm said on Wednesday domestic car sales is now expected to eke out upto 3 percent growth for the fiscal year ending March 2012, sliding from an earlier forecast of 8-10 percent.

Crisil’s latest estimate is in stark contrast to 2010/11, when domestic car sales grew at a breakneck speed of 30 percent.

Industry body Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers ( SIAM) expects sales to grow at 10-12 percent this year, but has indicated that estimate may be revised down.

“We have revised our forecasts downwards on account of a rise of 3 rupees in the petrol prices and a 25 basis points increase in interest rates. This would be only the second time in the decade when industry will grow at sub 5 per cent,” Crisil said in a note.

The Indian car market, which saw a 10 percent decline in sales in August, is driven by a burgeoning and aspirational middle class that relies on bank loans for such purchases.

But RBI has raised interest rates a dozen times in 18 months in an effort to battle near-double digit inflation, a move that has hurt credit-based purchases.

“While automobile financiers have not fully passed on the increased rates to end users, uncertainty regarding their decision to pass on the rate hikes, coupled with the burden of EMIs (equated monthly installments) of other loans would impact demand for cars,” Crisil said.

A timely resolution of an ongoing labour dispute and subsequent production loss at the country’s biggest car maker Maruti Suzuki is critical for the industry’s growth, Crisil noted.

If production remains constrained at Maruti, which accounts for roughly half the cars sold in India, industry growth will be “severely impacted,” Crisil added.

Mumbai: The next couple of days will see two vehicle launches. No big deal considering the spate of new models hitting the market. However, what makes the Brio and the XUV 500 special is the contrasting position of their individual manufacturers.

While a confident Mahindra & Mahindra wants to go a notch higher in the SUV space, Honda needs to price its car aggressively and get the momentum back in place.

For a little over a year, it looked as if it had lost its way but recent price cuts with the City and the Jazz have put things back in order. “The timing could not have been better with the Brio due to be launched on Tuesday,” sources said.
M&M’s new flagship

M&M’s XUV 500, which will debut a day later, will take over from the Scorpio as the flagship vehicle and priced upwards of Rs 12 lakh. The company believes that its brand is now robust enough to attract buyers to a higher priced SUV.

Nearly a decade ago, when it launched the Scorpio, things were quite different. M&M had broken away from Ford to focus on this Rs 600-crore project, which was meant to take it to another league from offerings like the Armada and the Commander.

It was a big chance but the company was absolutely clear that it had to graduate to the next level. The Scorpio caught the fancy of the market and M&M has not looked back since.

The (ex-showroom) price positioning of its products has also been carefully done. The Scorpio (and its different versions) is right on top priced at Rs 7.3-12.24 lakh, followed by the Xylo (Rs 7.09-9.35 lakh) and finally the top-selling Bolero at Rs 5.19-6.80 lakh. The XUV 500 will end up being the most expensive option but M&M is quite upbeat about its prospects especially when the Rs 12-20 lakh SUV space is still vacant.
Honda’s pricing-
As for Honda, it was categorical from the beginning about sticking to the premium space in cars. This strategy worked effectively with the City and the spin-offs were evident with the Accord and Civic too. There were no hiccups for some years till the script turned awry with the Jazz pricing at over Rs 7 lakh.

Though the City continued its good run, a big shock was imminent on the fuel pricing front. Last year, the Centre decided to deregulate petrol prices but continued with the subsidy on diesel.

This was when Honda realised it was in all sorts of trouble thanks to the large price differential between the two fuels. As petrol began getting progressively dearer, the demand for diesel cars shot through the roof and the City found itself under serious pressure.

Clearly, there was little Honda could do to remedy the fuel pricing situation. Its diesel engine was still over two years away and Honda R&D decided to work overtime and prune the costing structure of the City and Jazz.

With their prices now slashed by Rs 66,000 and Rs 1.5 lakh apiece, the results have been ‘electrifying’ with the crowds back in the showrooms.

New Delhi: After enjoying some success with its small car Figo in India, US auto maker Ford Motor Co. plans to bolster its sales and services network, particularly in smaller cities and towns, to expand market share.

The company aims to double its dealer network to 200 by the end of the year and treble it to 300 by 2015. Nearly half of these will be located in tier III and tier IV cities. It aims to open at least one dealer and services outlet every week until the end of 2012.

“We are going to have significant growth in our dealer and service network, and focus would be on tier III and tier IV cit- ies to a larger extent as we are very much present in tier I and tier II cities,“ said Michael Boneham, president and managing director of Ford India Pvt. Ltd.

This, the firm says, will better place it to take on growing competition. Ford has a market share of 4% in the car market at present, and hopes to take it past 10% by the end of 2015.

Maruti Suzuki India Ltd, the country’s largest car maker, has at least 900 sales outlets, followed by Hyundai Motor India Ltd with 340 while Tata Motors Ltd has 290 dealerships.

Ford’s internal research shows there will be at least 60 cities in India with more than one million people each by 2020, Boneham said. “So the market will be in those cities and we also have to be aggressive about having sales and services net- work in those cities, which have immense potential.“

To tap the potential of Figo–launched in India last year–in small towns and interior India, it is important for Ford to go beyond metros and big cities, said Nikhil Deshpande, research analyst with Mumbai-based brokerage firm PINC Research.

“The company also plans to have at least five-six small cars in the next five years and the kind of expansion it is looking at, that requires a very strong marketing network.