Take out Maruti Suzuki and Honda, and the auto sector's prospects suddenly don't look all that rosy.
Domestic passenger vehicle sales declined 0.84 per cent to 2,63,773 units in November from 2,66,000 units in the year-ago period. Motorcycle sales, too, declined 14.87 per cent to 8,93,538 units. Vehicle sales across categories registered a decline of 12.05 per cent to 17,92,415 units from 20,38,007 units in November 2018.
Top carmakers, including Maruti Suzuki India, Hyundai and Honda, are expecting a spike in their sales following the implementation of 7th Pay Commission recommendations.
The car so far known by the code name 'Kite' will be a hatchback.
Three way split of AIADMK has slowed decision-making, prompting industry to look outside the state, says T E Narasimhan.
Car deliveries during the nine-day period saw sharp year-on-year (double-digit increase for most automobile companies.
The auto industry has had a mixed month. The build up to Dhanteras and Diwali was good but the demand tapered off subsequently.
India is a market for low-priced cars with low running costs. The global majors don't have models that fit the bill; only Maruti and Hyundai have successful entry-level models, observes T N Ninan.
Honda Cars India is recalling a total of 1,338 units of its premium sedan Accord and sports utility vehicle CR-V manufactured between 2002 and 2003 to replace a faulty part in the passenger side airbags. The recall, which is part of Honda's global recall regarding the potential defect related to passenger air bag announced in June 2014, would cover 1,085 units of Accord and 253 units of CR-V.
Maruti has announced it will phase out diesel variants from April 1, 2020, when stringent BS VI norms take effect
Ahead of the international auto show that begins next Wednesday, the Indian auto industry continues to be buffeted with bad news. According to data released by leading automobile companies on Saturday, the industry's sales volumes in January fell about five per cent from those in the same month last year.
Tata Motors has halved the volume outlook for its UK subsidiary Jaguar Land Rover Automotive (JLR) and warned of lower earnings as it sees the semiconductor shortage deepening in the September quarter of the current financial year, according to a notification issued by the company to the stock exchanges on Tuesday. The announcement caught investors unawares. They were hoping for a quicker recovery. Tata Motors' stock tanked 13 per cent (on July 6) from the day's high of Rs 358.10 and hit the lower circuit (Rs 311.45) in intra-day trades.
The compact sedan Zest competes with the established brands like Maruti D'zire, Honda Amaze and Hyundai Xcent.
Maruti Ciaz and Ertiga are exempt from the infrastructure cess and so, there is no change in the prices of these models.
'If it is your second car (electric vehicle), you typically keep it for travel within the city.' 'And the first car (internal combustion engine-run vehicles) can then be used to travel to some other cities.'
Recently, Suzuki Motor Corp (SMC) in an investor presentation expressed strong intent to enter the electric vehicle (EV) space. This is part of a larger strategy the Hamamatsu-based firm has drawn up in developing electrification of technologies as it seeks to achieve carbon neutrality. The significance of this presentation is that it marked the first time that the Japanese carmaker spelt out its EV strategy with well-defined timelines. SMC plans to develop electrification technologies by 2025, fully implement them in products from the same year, and make a full-scale quantitative increase from 2030.
The new SUV from the Tatas will compete with the likes of Jeep Compass, Hyundai Creta, Hyundai Tucson and the Mahindra XUV500.
However, notable absentees from the expo will be Honda, Toyota, Ford, BMW, Audi, Lexus, Volvo and Jaguar Land Rover along with two-wheeler majors Hero MotoCorp, Bajaj Auto and TVS Motor Co.
The price differential has been upwards of 20%.
Maruti Suzuki is set to launch a new multi-purpose vehicle (MPV) -- Invicto -- next month. It will be the company's first passenger vehicle with an ex-showroom price tag of Rs 20 lakh or more, said Shashank Srivastava, executive director (sales), on Tuesday. The upcoming MPV will compete with the likes of Toyota Innova Hycross, Kia Carnival, Hyundai Alcazar, MG Hector Plus, Tata Safari, Mahindra & Mahindra XUV700, and Mahindra & Mahindra Scorpio-N - all having three rows of seats. Invicto will be based on the Hycross by Toyota, which will manufacture Maruti's most expensive car at its Bidadi plant in Karnataka.
Ola Electric on Thursday teased five new electric motorcycles that the SoftBank-backed company is working on, announcing the range after selling electric scooters. The products are labelled cafe racer, an adventure tourer, a scrambler and a naked motorcycle. The motorcycles are expected to be launched next year and would include premium and mass-market versions, said sources.
Let alone a discount, they might not even get the model, variant or colour of choice in BS-IV-compliant vehicles.
After the easing of lockdown in mid-May, auto companies were able to resume production in a phased manner, but the ramp-up was slow due to a broken supply chain, and lockdown-induced restrictions.
Innovation ranging from exterior designs of vehicles to EV charger locks grabbed eyeballs at the expo
Companies have also managed to find talent created by frequent exits.
Amid better semiconductor chip supplies, the Indian automotive industry posted an 8 percent growth in production of vehicles across categories for the month of May, with three-wheelers (20 per cent) and passenger vehicles (16 per cent) leading the pack. Exports, however, dipped 21 per cent at an industry level. The industry also recorded its highest-ever May wholesales of domestic passenger vehicles (334,802 units), riding on high demand for sport utility vehicles (SUVs) and better supplies of semiconductor chips.
Maruti Suzuki posted a marginal increase in January and the likes of Hyundai, Ford and Mahindra & Mahindra reporting a single-digit growth.
Cumulative sales of India's top passenger vehicle makers -- Maruti Suzuki, Mahindra and Mahindra, Tata Motors, Honda Cars, and Toyota Kirloskar -- increased to 206,418 units in February over 200,322 units in the same month last year, an increase of 3 per cent.
'While we have done a few thousand kilometres in India, most of the testing and data collection and analysis has been done in the US, Japan and Europe.'
Maruti Suzuki, Hyundai, Mahindra and Toyota reported low single-digit sales growth for the month owing to weak market sentiment
Tesla Inc, the world's largest electric car producer, is looking to make a significant investment in India, said its chief Elon Musk, who saw India as holding more promise than any other large country around the globe. Musk, after meeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi, said he plans to visit India in 2024. "I am confident that Tesla will be in India and we will do so as soon as humanly possible," Musk told reporters after the meeting.
Experts attribute the high valuation of Indian auto makers to the faster growth in India compared to the rest of the world.
Vehicle prices have gone up as manufacturers gear up for the transition to stricter emission norm BS-VI from BS-IV beginning April 1.
Maruti's 7 models in India's top ten selling passenger vehicles in 2016-17
The new year will see a line of hatchbacks (including compact SUVs) hit the Indian roads. Rajesh Karkera/Rediff.com offers a peek.
Maruti Suzuki India (MSIL) does not anticipate growth in the small car segment because people continue to find these vehicles unaffordable, chairman R C Bhargava said on Wednesday. He said the market had clearly shifted towards the sport utility vehicle (SUV) segment and the company will go in the same direction. The domestic sales of utility vehicles jumped in India by 34.54 per cent to about 2 million units in FY23.
The company has delivered 1,000 cars to buyers and is in the process of delivering another 2,000 units.
India is sceptical that Tesla might import into the country cars made in China. Tesla executives were in India last month and appear to have proposed a factory in the country. But do not be surprised if that does not happen in a hurry.
The first major pricing error was made by market leader Maruti Suzuki when it launched its first crossover the S Cross
