Honda Jazz Arrives

Honda launches its much-awaited hatchback, Honda Jazz.  Honda, like many other brands, views India as a very good market to invest. The Jazz will join Honda’s very famous models in the country.

The success of Jazz is very important for Honda as it is still in the entry level of the Indian small car market. For Honda, it has been an extremely smooth sail. The sedans and SUVs of Honda is a big hit in the Indian car market. And for Honda, Jazz is a new start.

Mode, Basic, and Active are the three variants of Jazz.  The three variants have the same safety features. The Jazz Basic is available at Rs 6.98 Lakh. The Jazz Mode is the the family edition from Jazz that is priced at Rs 7.28 Lakh. The sporty variant of Jazz, Jazz Active, is equipped with fog lamps, body coloured front grille, sport pedals, and a smart spoiler at the top of the tailgate and the costliest variant. The Jazz is very spacious, cozy and trendy. It is apt for any road conditions and offers great fuel efficiency. The high quality and great efficiency will be an added advantage.

It spite of it extremely sophisticated features, it will not be easy for the Jazz to compete with Maruti Suzuki Ritz, Hyundai i20, and Skoda Fabia.

Smaller than Santro

Hyundai Santro always remained as one of the popular model from the small car segment and was sold in big numbers. Now Hyundai Motors is planning to roll out a car smaller than Santro.

The car details and the price is not yet revealed but it is expected to hit the Indian roads by 2011. Currently, due to the global recession, car manufacturers are experiencing a dip and this is definitely not the right time for any new launches.

The car brand is presently busy with its export numbers that are enough in numbers to keep them busy for some time. Recently Hyundai reached the landmark of 20 lakh sales and as gesture of goodwill, the company handed the over the 20th lakh car over to the NGO — CRY (Child Rights and You). The popular bollywood actor and the Hyundai’s brand ambassador Shah Rukh Khan did the honor of handing the keys to Irwin Fernandes, Director of West and Volunteer Action, CRY.

Another low-cost car for India

Small cars already dominate the Indian car market and now we have more coming up. The upcoming Tata Nano has created a sensation in the car market globally with its ‘one lakh price tag. Every car major is working on small and low cost car for India and the latest car brand to join the bandwagon of small cars is Toyota Motors.

The Japanese car manufacturer is working on a new car project and is expected to hit the Indian shores by 2010. The compact car, which will carry the price tag of nearly Rs 2.5 Lakh, will target the younger crown in general.

Toyota’s small car will be tough challenge to Nano, which is scheduled for launch by mid-2009. India is already crowded with small cars. Are the small cars stealing the lime light from the bigger cars?

New small cars from Maruti-Suzuki

Maruti Suzuki entered the Indian car market with its legendary Maruti 800. They have excelled in the small cars segment and the successful models like Maruti Suzuki Alto, Maruti Suzuki WagonR, and Maruti Suzuki Swift are the best example of the great endeavours the company has made in small car segment.

Following the trend of small car, Suzuki plans to create small and compact fuel-efficient cars for India. The car major believes that fuel-efficient cars from the small segment will be a great success in the Indian car market. In a country like India where there is huge traffic and parking cars is a big problem. Such kind of small cars cater to great help for the buyers.

Suzuki is doing various studies on the most effective engine technology that can be fitted in small cars whereas Maruti is concentrating on the design factor that would be best suited small cars exclusively for India.

Exceptional discount schemes from Hyundai for Government Employees

Every car manufacturer promotes their products in an attractive way and Hyundai always offers it customers in a unique way. The car manufacturer is offering special discounts of up to Rs 31,000 on some of its cars especially for government employees. It is aiming to cash in on the higher salaries and arrears under the Sixth Pay Commission.

This scheme is offered only for the month of October and November and will be for both state and central government employees. During the festive season, this will be an added incentive for the employees to buy a Hyundai car.

However this is offered considering the fact that the government employees are due to receive the arrears after revision in the Sixth Pay Commission. These arrears can be used to make a down payment for purchase of the car. Moreover, the revised salary increment can be utilized to help them to pay in monthly installments.

The cars that would be offered discount are Santro, i10, Getz, Accent, and Verna.

In addition, Hyundai is tied up with Axis Bank, State Bank of India and HDFC Bank to lure finance schemes to the government employees.

Volkswagen to Minimize its Production Costs

Small cars are gaining huge popularity in Indian market. The car manufacturers have understood this and are now rolling out more small cars in the country. Even Volkswagen is all set to launch its small car in India soon.

The small car would come packed with local flavour as the German car manufacturer plans a high degree of indigenization for its volume car. So this would be the first ever car that would enter the compact car segment.

The small car will enter the Indian market around 2010 and the same will be manufactured at Volkswagen upcoming manufacturing plant at Chakan in Maharashtra. The company feels that high level of local content will not only lessen the production cost of the car, but will also help preserving costs with the spare parts.

The company is planning to invest around Rs 3600 crore in setting up the manufacturing facility at Chakan. The production in this unit will start from 2009 end. Also the manufacturing plant will be used partially for the production of Skoda’s hatchback Fabia.

Many car manufacturers are realizing what the buyers are looking for and are going according to their choice.

More i10 to Be Produced in India

Hyundai i10 was launched in the year 2007 and till date it has made remarkable sales in the market. The demand for the hatchback is increasing massively in domestic as well as overseas market. The car manufacturer has opened a third shift in their plant in south India to meet the growing demand for this compact car.

Hyundai is all set to make India a manufacturing hub for small cars. Till now the i10 has been sold more than 172,000 units in the country.

The company wants to make a noteworthy place in the Indian market. There are also a series of new launches like i20 to be launched by the end of this year and i30 and i40 would be launched in the coming months.

The thirst for i10 is increasing day after day and this is the best way to satisfy the customers by increasing the production of this exciting car.

Nano to be rolled out in Three Petrol Variants

Finally Nano ready to be launched by October end this year. The cheap car Nano is set to roll out with its three petrol variants in the Indian market and is named as standard, deluxe and luxury.

The luxury variant comes packed with a range of attractive features like HVAC, front and rear fog lamps, power window, central locking, tinted glasses, extended reflector, and instrument cluster with trip meter. It also has some existing features like body-colour bumper and door handles, door lock on the co-driver side, and slider with recliner, 3-spoke steering wheel and double stalk comb switch. The deluxe version will only have HVAC and tinted windows.

The basic variant will be priced at Rs 1 lakh. The deluxe and luxury variants will be priced an extra of Rs 20,000-30,000.

However the diesel variant of Nano will be launched next year and will also have three variants.

Mumbai to be a Design Hub for Renault’s Ultra Low-Cost Car

India is becoming popular for small cars and many car manufacturers are geared up to introduce small cars. Moreover, Renault is now set to launch low-cost cars. It has chosen India to offer a bigger role in designing and developing its ultra low-cost car.

The design hub will develop all its new products in Mumbai, the design centres across the world would work at it, and Paris would take a final call.

For the first time Renault is developing an ultra low-cost car in India. Mumbai’s design centre will provide the main design framework, with other design centers’ across the world providing smaller inputs for the ULC.

However, a team of 10-12 Indian designers is working on the small car project. The design centre is set to be inaugurated on September. Small and cheap cars are gaining a lot of popularity in the country and many car manufacturers have understood what Indians are looking for and are working for the same.

Government Helps Car manufacturers to Export Small Cars

The thirst of small cars is increasing tremendously in both the Indian market as well as global markets. Now the government is also lending a helping hand to the Indian car manufacturers by extending Focus Market Scheme (FMS) incentives. Here the automobiles are exported to targeted markets will get cash-incentives of up to 5%.

The worldwide market is likely to increase to 83 countries that will be covered under FMS. Basically, this scheme is set up to aid Indian car manufacturers to conquer a larger portion of the growing markets in Latin America, Africa and the CIS bloc and build India a global hub for small cars.

The new policy is taken up by the Government chiefly to help the manufacturers in gratifying the demands for smaller and fuel-efficient cars in the world markets.

India’s largest car manufacturer, Maruti Suzuki plans to tap the market with its most eagerly waiting hatchback, the A-Star. Whereas Hyundai plans to export its most popular i10 to the US.