Michael Boneham, president, Ford India, said the small car would be engineered for Indian conditions and that the company was keeping options open for both petrol and diesel variants. Ford's mall car will mark its entry into the mainstream segment, popularly known as the B segment cars in India, which accounts for a little over 70 per cent of the 1.3 million India car market.
The concept of the rally organised by Hyundai was to promote fuel efficient driving habits among its customers.
Tamil Nadu, claiming to be the Detroit of India, has labour unrest in the automobile industry, among others.
Sales of the compact segment comprising Swift, Estilo, Ritz, Dzire and Baleno increased by 4.1 per cent to 50,362 units
Hyundai Motors India hopes to export over 250,000 cars next year from India, twice this year's number. Yet, Managing Director H S Lheem said this performance will not be without its problems. In fact, ebullient exports may end up denting the company's bottom line.
The growth momentum that started during the festival season is likely to sustain in the new year, reports Arindam Majumder.
The company currently sells various vehicle brands in the country ranging from hatchback Spark to sports utility vehicle Captiva, priced between Rs 333,000 and Rs 25.71 lakh (Rs 2.57 million), respectivley, (ex-showroom Delhi).
Hyundai Motors India has flown in over 90 robots from Korea to work on assembly lines in its factory near Chennai. The results are better than expectations
The Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Commission on Thursday advised auto giants Maruti and Hyundai not to target each other in advertisements and asked Maruti to file its reply to a complaint filed by its rival carmaker.
Market leader Maruti registers a growth of 19% in 2007.
As the production of Micra, the first car from Nissan-Renault, starts at the plant by the end of May, Kiminobu Tokuyama, managing director and chief executive of Nissan Motor India Pvt Ltd, talks to rediff.com about the company's strategy for India, the recession and the auto sector in general.
HMSI has increased the monthly salary of its permanent workers by Rs 14,770 a month.
Maruti, Hyundai, Tata Motors, Mahindra & Mahindra and Honda saw their passenger vehicle sales improve in August compared to the same month last year, although Ford and Toyota witnessed a decline.
India's second-biggest carmaker Hyundai Motor India Ltd on Wednesday raised prices of its two models while market leader Maruti and Czech car firm Skoda announced plans to follow suit next month to meet the rise in input costs and new emission norms.
India's second-biggest carmaker Hyundai Motor India on Monday said it plans to increase prices by the next month.
'The decrease in the popularity of white cars and the rise in preference for darker colours like black, grey, and blue over the past three years reflect changing consumer attitudes.'
The government is considering the option of inviting fresh applications to bid for the fourth slot which fell vacant after one of the initial candidates who qualified, Hyundai Global Motors, exited from the production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme for advanced chemistry cell battery storage with a capacity of 20 GwH. Earlier, stakeholders had expected that the vacant slot would be offered to waitlisted players ranked on their technical and financial offer. A final decision will be taken soon.
Ford India and Renault too reported good sales growth in April
Besieged by rising steel prices, the domestic passenger car manufacturers are gearing up to raise prices again. Barely a month ago, Maruti Suzuki, Hyundai Motors India, Mahindra & Mahindra, Tata Motors and Honda Siel had effected price increases of Rs 6,000 to Rs 30,000 across models.
The meltdown in Dalal Street that wiped out investor wealth to the tune of 44 trillion in 2025 also seems to be having a ripple effect on the country's vibrant automobile retail sales.
Domestic passenger vehicle (PV) sales saw a significant growth in October due to increased availability of semiconductor chips and rising consumer confidence. The sales figures during the month - which coincided with the first post-Covid festival season - released by the top ten carmakers saw a jump of 30.7 per cent to 322,885 units in October. Auto companies count wholesales - units dispatched to dealers - as sales.
Carmakers Mercedes-Benz, Audi, Renault, Kia India and MG Motor on Wednesday announced plans to hike vehicle prices from January to partially offset the impact of rising input costs. They join the likes of market leader Maruti Suzuki India and Tata Motors, which have also made the year-end announcements to raise prices from next month. Audi India said it will increase prices of its entire model range by up to 1.7 per cent, while Mercedes-Benz India noted it will hike the prices by up to 5 per cent from January 1.
The new financial year started on a mixed note for car makers.
With nearly 100 launches and unveils, the Bharat Mobility Global Expo 2025, held in Delhi from January 17 to 22, made one thing clear to automobile enthusiasts: Electric vehicles (EVs) are the way ahead for the Indian auto market for years to come.
The share of government banks in auto finance has increased significantly in the last few months. In some cases, it has nearly doubled. The reason: these banks are offering cheaper loans than their private sector counterparts.
...But sales of domestic passenger vehicles dropped 2% to 3% year-on-year in August owing to low demand.
Leading automakers Maruti Suzuki, Hyundai and Tata Motors reported decline in wholesales in August as the companies curtailed vehicle dispatches amid drop in demand and to cut inventories at dealer level. Market leader Maruti Suzuki India said its total domestic passenger vehicle wholesales were at 143,075 units last month as compared to 156,114 units in the year-ago month, registering a dip of 8 per cent. Sales of mini segment cars, comprising Alto and S-Presso, declined to 10,648 units last month as against 12,209 units a year ago.
'We are seeing one of the highest discounts in recent years across companies.' 'October is a crucial month with several festivals coming up.'
If Tesla comes in, India's position as a manufacturing hub will rise many notches, as it will become only the second country, after China, to have both Apple as well as Tesla.
With a slew of new players entering the Indian small car market, segment leaders like Maruti Suzuki India and Hyundai Motor India will face challenge to their domination.
Besides their country of origin, General Motors, Ford Motor and Harley-Davidson have another trait in common: all three have failed in India, the world's fifth largest automobile market. All three of them took a tough call to de-prioritise India as a market amid disruption from heightened regulations and sharper focus on capital allocation by the parent.
The Verna will be placed in the upper end of the segment priced between Rs 6.21 lakh and Rs 6.36 lakh for the petrol variant and Rs 7.35 lakh for the diesel variant.
The price of petrol variant of the Verna has been raised by Rs 3,500 (for the base model), while the diesel model has become dearer by Rs 10,000.
For Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M), which has just started executing a comeback strategy for wresting back ground it lost to rivals, this could not have come at a worse time. The maker of the Bolero Neo and the Thar models on Thursday said it would have to halt production at its automotive plant for a week due to the worsening supply situation of semiconductors.
BS-VI emission norms and the COVID-19 lockdown impacted the dispatches.
With India's EV penetration at just 2.5 per cent, the market presents an opportunity -- provided Tesla gets its pricing right.
