India's electric mobility goal, which has so far been riding on two wheels, is all set to graduate to four wheels. At least, the journey has begun. Hyundai Motor India said it would invest Rs 4,000 crore till 2028 to launch half-a-dozen electric vehicles (EVs) in India. It would eventually straddle premium and mass segments. The first of these - the electrified version of an internal combustion engine (ICE)-powered model - will go on sale as early as next year.
China's biggest carmaker, which own brands like Maxus, MG, Roewe and Yuejin, plans to invest $1 billion in India manufacturing unit, reports Swaraj Baggonkar from Mumbai.
US auto major Ford Motor Co will shut its two manufacturing plants in India and will sell only imported vehicles in the country as part of a restructuring exercise, according to people aware of the development. The company, which invested about USD 2.5 billion at its Chennai (Tamil Nadu) and Sanand (Gujarat) plants, will stop selling vehicles such as the EcoSport, Figo and Aspire which are produced from these plants. Going ahead, it would only sell imported vehicles like Mustang in the country.
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.
From the customer point of view too, LFP batteries are safer and offer a longer life.
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 country's largest carmaker Maruti Suzuki India (MSI) on Monday reported a 11.8 per cent increase in wholesales to 164,469 units in February. The company had sold 147,110 units in February last year, Maruti Suzuki India (MSI) said in a statement. Domestic sales increased 11.8 per cent to 1,52,983 units last month, as against 1,36,849 units in February 2020, it added.
The global semiconductor shortage hit passenger vehicle sales in September, with major manufacturers like Maruti Suzuki, Hyundai and Mahindra & Mahindra reporting a decline in sales on Friday. Kia India and Honda Cars also reported a dip in wholesales last month as compared with the year-ago period. Carmakers like Tata Motors, Toyota Kirloskar Motor, Nissan and Skoda, however, reported an increase in passenger vehicle dispatches last month despite supply chain issues.
The number of participating automakers has fallen from 50 in 2018 to 30 this year. The count of exhibitors, including technology companies, has come down from 119 to 112. And showstopper luxury and supercar brands, including Toyota, Jeep, Lamborghini, Porsche, and Volvo will be missing. Similarly, the commercial vehicle makers also gave the show a miss -- a prolonged economic slowdown has dented their fortunes and near chances of any recovery.
Leading carmakers Maruti Suzuki, Hyundai and Tata Motors reported robust dispatches to dealers in May on the back of strong demand for passenger vehicles across regions, even as the global semiconductor shortage continued to impact production. Mahindra & Mahindra, Kia India, Toyota Kirloskar Motor, Honda Cars and Skoda also witnessed strong demand for their models last month. The month of May also witnessed Tata Motors race ahead of Hyundai in terms of domestic wholesales.
After years of giving free passes to counterparts from Korea, Japan, US in the Indian auto market, Chinese automakers had planned a major push to grab the fifth largest car market in the world. But the shutdown of factories and logistics hubs in the country following the outbreak of coronavirus is slowly constricting the business of Chinese auto majors which have recently entered India.
The country's top carmaker Maruti Suzuki India (MSI) on Wednesday said it has decided to advance maintenance shutdown at its two Haryana-based manufacturing plants by a month amid a surge in the COVID-19 cases across the country. The auto major was supposed to take the shutdown at its two plants in Gurugram and Manesar in June, but due to the tsunami of COVID-19 cases, it decided to take it one month earlier to save oxygen for medical needs. MSI noted that as part of the car manufacturing process, it uses a small amount of oxygen in its factories, while relatively much larger quantities are used by the manufacturers of components.
Maharashtra's Labour Minister Dilip Walse-Patil has sought a written submission from the General Motors' (GM) Employees Union and the management of the company detailing its stance on the issue of plant closure. The labour minister asked the warring sides for submission at a hearing on Tuesday. Both sides have been given a week's time to reply.
If you are planning to buy an electric car in the near future, it would be highly advisable to wait for these upcoming electric SUVs.
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.
Ahead of the peak festive season, India's passenger vehicle makers are staring at a cumulative order backlog of nearly 500,000 units as chip shortage continues to cripple production. The crisis is forcing companies to change their production plans frequently and take a call on the variants they can manufacture based on the availability of semiconductors. The booking numbers are not a true reflection of demand, said manufacturers.
Big, Bold and Smart. That's what the MG Hector radiates when you first see it.
Close to half a dozen more three-row premium mid-size models are expected to hit the road over the next two years.
'I'm very much against petrol and diesel....'' 'I travel in an electric car.' 'I have had a really good experience with it.'
New participants included Chinese players such as Great Wall Motors and Haima Automobile along with Olectra.
'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.'
Car sales are experiencing a challenging phase with around Rs 60,000 crore worth of inventory lying unsold with dealers.
Apart from around 40 Japanese companies and five global vendors of MG Motor India, many other biggies are eyeing Gujarat for either greenfield opportunities or brownfield expansion.
Earlier in May, Ford India announced that it had dropped its plans to make electric vehicles (EVs) in India, which it intended to export, under the production-linked incentive scheme (PLI). Ford was among 20 companies that had signed a Champion OEM Incentive Scheme under the PLI project with the government in February this year. The decision comes as a blow for the 4,000-odd employees at Ford India's Maraimalai Nagar plant near Chennai and in Sanand, Gujarat. In September last year, the company had announced that it would exit the India market, which it had entered in 1995 through an on-again, off-again joint venture with Mahindra & Mahindra (they split in 1998, signed a JV in 2019 and split again in December 2020), retailing petrol and diesel brands such as the EcoSport, Figo, Aspire, and Endeavour.
While traditional automakers in India are reeling under a global shortage of semiconductors, the country's electric vehicle (EV) makers, too, are now facing a shortage of lithium-ion batteries, a key raw material. The soaring prices of metals like lithium, nickel and cobalt, which are the primary constituents of the cell, as well as supply chain bottlenecks, are also pushing up the cost of batteries. Battery manufacturers say that prices have been increasing every quarter since the beginning of 2021.
The new tax regime has also been fuelling sale of SUVs, particularly the compact SUVs
India's first home-grown mapping company MapMyIndia is looking to list in the public market by raising around Rs 1,200 crore at a Rs 6,000-crore valuation. Sources said the company is ready with its draft red herring prospectus documents and is likely to file as early as next week. While the money will be used for business expansion, it will also give MapMyIndia's early investors, including Qualcomm, PhonePe, and Japanese mapmaker Zenrin Co., a chance to exit. The Verma family, which founded the company, will continue to remain promoters.
During the six-day-long event, automakers have planned 10 global launches, 26 India specific launches, six concept vehicles, seven facelifts and 21 vehicle unveilings.
I am happy I didn't knock anyone down, driving recklessly or trying to show off. However, in one instance of road rage (the consequence of arguing with a driver who disrespected my right to cross the road peacefully) I did find a man in a SUV taking his anger out on me by driving his vehicle over my feet, recalls Shyam G Menon.
Morgan Stanley Sales & Trading, US, believes the stock is better value for money than others and has a upside as high as 73 per cent. A slowdown in the economy has hit demand and led to a fall in overall consumption in an auto market which till recently was one of the fastest growing in the world.
The soaring prices of metals like lithium, nickel and cobalt, which are the primary constituents of the cell, as well as supply chain bottlenecks, are also pushing up the cost of batteries
Tata Motors has bagged an order from Britain's MG Rover to export 100,000 units of the hatchback car City Rover over four years, with the first consignment slated to reach Birmingham any day, the Sunday Times reported.
he company has not put in place a full-time managing director for the past one and half year after the exit of Vikram Pawah in January last year.
Vehicle sales have been hampered by weak consumer sentiment and still-weak availability of financing following tighter liquidity at non-banking lenders since the middle of 2018.
The new Duster will go head-to-head with popular models like Hyundai Creta, Kia Seltos, Volkswagen Taigun, Skoda Kushaq, Maruti Suzuki Grand Vitara, Toyota Urban Cruiser Hyryder, MG Astor, etc in the highly competitive mid-size SUV segment.
Tata Group chairman Natarajan Chandrasekaran on Thursday said the group's recently launched super app Neu is on an open architecture and it will host non-group brands as well. The Tatas finally launched its super app Tata Neu on April 7, after piloting it for months, but the group chairman claimed there was no delay in the commercial launch. Stating that the app has received an overwhelming response in the past seven days of going live, Chandrasekaran said the app is on an open architecture and will host products and services from non-Tata group companies.
The Tata group on Thursday launched its super app, Tata Neu, bringing all its brands in one platform as it seeks to play a major role in the Indian ecommerce space currently dominated by the likes of Amazon and Flipkart.
Close to 50 models were launched in India in the past 12 months, but companies have not been able to realise their potential due to the pandemic.
What explains India's love affair with SUVs? They are not exactly "value for money" -- the watchword for brands across segments -- nor always practical. Is it for the badge value? Or the butch imagery associated with SUVs? Maybe both, says Alokananda Chakraborty.
While the overall passenger car industry is expected to grow at around seven per cent a year in the next five years, SUV growth is expected to be over 10 per cent.
