Archive for India

Renault-Nissan has announced that it will work with an Indian company called Bajaj Auto to produce the world’s cheapest car, even cheaper than the Tata Nano. An agreement was signed and the partnership is set to introduce the new low-cost vehicle in 2012.

Under the agreement, Bajaj will handle the design, engineering as well as the manufacturing while Renault-Nissan will focus on marketing, branding and the sale of parts. CEO Carlos Ghosn revealed that the cost of the car will be lower any car made in India today, pointing to a price tag that would be cheaper than the Rs 1 lakh carried by the Nano.

With India to become the primary market and exports to emerging markets to be made later, the new vehicle is expected to feature a mileage that is better than 20 kilometers per liter. The car will be built in India and will target India’s emerging middle class. Both companies actually announced a partnership last year but apparently there were some disagreements, which have now been resolved. Pictured above is the Bajaj Lite concept that was shown in 2008.

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They really should make more amusing ads like this. Check out this Volkswagen Touran TV commercial after the jump. They’re promoting the car’s Park Assist system, which by the way is available locally on the Volkswagen Tiguan. The dude in the video can’t dance though but he kinda looks like Schumacher. The Touran is a Golf-based MPV that isn’t available in Malaysia, though there were a number of pre-owned ones (CrossTouran) sold off by Volkswagen Malaysia recently. Volkswagen recently announced that they will start assembly of the Touran in Indonesia.

Click here to read the rest of Volkswagen Touran Park Assist System TVC

The Tata Nano is officially here and on sale! Bear in mind this is the Indian domestic market version and not the larger, more well-equipped version that was showcased as the Tata Nano Europa recently.

The Indian version of the Nano will go on sale from the 1st of April onwards at Tata Motors Passenger Car dealerships and other select authorised outlets, available in 3 variants – Standard, CX and LX, with a 24,000km or 18 month warranty. The cheapest one is priced at 1 lakh as promised, but only when it leaves the factory, after that it gets some other costs tagged on including shipping, taxes and registration.

The Tata Nano has its engine mounted at the back, a 624cc 2-cylinder aluminium multi-port fuel injection engine mated to a 4-speed transmission. The engine produces 35 PS at 5,250rpm and 48Nm of torque at 3,000rpm, with a top speed of 105km/h.

Not much power, but the car weighs only 600kg. It can negotiate a maximum of a 30% grade incline. Fuel efficiency is rated at 23.6 km/litre, certified by the Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI) under mandated test conditions – this is said to be the most fuel efficient petrol car in India.

The Nano measures just 3,100mm long, with a width of 1,500mm and a height of 1,600mm. Tata claims despite it having the smallest exterior footprint of any car in India, it is 21% more spacious than the smallest car available today.

The Standard is very bare, with 3 colour options, single-tone seats and a fold-down rear bench. If you notice, it doesn’t even have side view mirrors. The CX adds 2 more colours, climate control, two-tone seats, a parcel shelf, boost-assisted brakes, and a fold-down rear seat with a nap rest.

The highest grade LX model adds complete fabric seats, central locking, front power windows, body-coloured bumpers and etc, fog lamps, an electronic trip meter, a front console cup holder, a mobile charger point, and a rear spoiler.

There is limited capacity at the moment, as Tata’s Sanand plant is not ready yet in terms of capacity. The State Bank of India will be managing the Nano’s bookings. Application forms will be sold at Rs. 300 from 30,000 locations in 10,000 cities – Tata Motors Passenger Car dealerships, State Bank of India and its branches, its subsidiaries and associates, other preferred financiers, and outlets of Westside, Croma, ‘World of Titan’ and Tata Indicom exclusive stores.

After one obtains the form, he can either pay the entire booking amount themselves or seek financing of the booking amount. Financing is available from 15 financial institutions, where a Nano can be booked for Rs. 2999.

After 60 days of the closure of bookings, Tata will use a lottery system to allocate the first 100,000 cars to be delivered in phase 1 of the delivery process. Deliveries will start in July 2009.

If you do not get selected for the first phase of delivery, unlike here where your booking fee gets stuck for ages if your car takes a long time to get delivered, customers will be eligible to interest on their booking fees – 8.5% for retention period between one year to two year and 8.75% for a retention period of more than 2 years.

Look after the jump for a full gallery of the Nano.

Related Posts:
The Tata Nano: how did they manage to make it so cheap?

Click here to read the rest of Tata Nano officially goes on sale, delivery in July!

The Tata Prima is the first collaboration between Tata and Italian company Pininfarina and is based on the Tata Indigo platform stretched to a 2,700mm wheelbase. It kinda looks somewhat like a Nissan Sylphy actually, and you can see some latest design “trends” incorporated there although some can be considered overkill – it has TWO sets of daytime running lights – you get one strip on each side the bumper and another set integrated into the headlamps. I feel Tata should really reconsider a stronger corporate grille for its car. The front end that ended up on this one kinda makes it look like a smart forfour when viewed head-on. A prominent and good-looking corporate grille is really important. Hyundai has found a new one in their i-series of cars, albeit somewhat shamelessly ripped off from the pre-facelift current generation Honda Civic, while Kia has its new H-grille design penned by Peter Schreyer. Look after the jump for a gallery of the Tata PR1MA Concept.

Click here to read the rest of New Tata PR1MA Concept designed by Pininfarina

Tata has unveiled a more regularly-specced version of the Tata Nano that it intends to sell in more sophisticated markets such as Europe. It will be a car that has all the creature comforts that you’d expect, unlike the 1 lakh version that it intends to sell in India which will be stripped bare of even an air conditioning unit.

This high-spec version has been exhibited at the 2009 Geneva Motor Show and is called the Tata Nano Europa. While the Indian Nano rides on a wheelbase of 2,230mm, the Tata Nano Europe has a stretched 2,280mm wheelbase and measures 3,290mm long and 1,580mm wide (the Indian Nano is 3,100mm by 1,500mm). It’s actually shorter both in terms of length and wheelbase compared to the Kancil but is wider. Powering the Nano Europe is an inline-3 fuel injection engine mated to a 5-speed automatic and it will also come with a power steering system.

Other features that the Nano Europa will get include ABS, ESP stability control and airbags, which already places it above many small cars in terms of equipment, especially the presence of stability control. Of course with all of this extra features the price will be far from the original pricetag that gave the Nano its “1 lakh car” nickname, but I doubt the European customer will accept driving something as bare as the Indian Nano. Who knows, we could even end up having this Nano Europa sold in Malaysia by the new Tata franchisee, whoever they may be.

Tata of course has other aces up its sleeve for Europe, and it begins to make sense why they acquired Jaguar once you see what else they are exhibiting at Geneva, coming soon right after this story.

Some of you may be wondering what has happened to the Tata Nano after all the buzz that was created after it was unveiled back in January last year. Tata’s 1-lakh car had gone through so many downs such as having to abandon a nearly-completed production plant because of regional protests, and the continuous economic downturn doesn’t do much to help the Indian conglomerate who dreamt up this car for the masses.

But good news this time – in less than 1 month’s time, the Tata Nano will be officially unveiled in Mumbai on the 23rd of March 2009, with the first batch of showroom cars delivered from the 1st week of April 2009 onwards. Dealerships will be accepting bookings from the 2nd week of April 2009 onwards. We will get the full details on the production car at the March unveiling, but at the moment please check out our past coverage on the Tata Nano. There are some very interesting details on how Tata plans to make the car so cheap as well as videos.

According to latest exchange rates – 1 lakh Indian Rupees is US$1,986 or RM 7,300. That’s seriously cheap, but the base model will be extremely bare, likely not to even have air conditioning! But still safer than a motorcycle.

Related Posts:
Tata Nano target market may face difficulty with loans
Tata Nano affects used car prices in India
Tata Nano to get US$10 airbag?
VIDEO: Tata Nano unveiling at Delhi 2008
Tata Nano: how did they do it? (engineering details)
More photos of the Tata Nano
Tata Nano – the name of the Tata 1-lakh car

Hyundai has launched the new Hyundai i20 in India. India will be a production base for the new i20, and i20s from Hyundai’s plant in Chennai is already being exported to locations around the world, which could include Malaysia as well, when Sime Darby gets around to bringing the car in. The recently launched Inokom i10 also came in as a CBU from India initially, but is now built from CKD packs sourced from India.

The new Hyundai i20 replaces the Hyundai Getz in Hyundai’s line-up, and will likely become the new Inokom i20 here in Malaysia. The Indian model only comes with a 1.2 liter all-aluminium Kappa engine producing 80 horsepower mated to a 5-speed manual, but the i20 is also designed to take a 100hp 1.4 liter, a 126hp 1.6 liter, and a range of diesel engines including two 1.4 liter units and two 1.6 liter units with outputs ranging from 75hp to 128hp.

Malaysia will likely get at least the 1.4 liter petrol, as with the current Inokom Getz.

Click here to read the rest of New Hyundai i20 (Getz) to be built in India

Honda has a few K-cars in the Japanese market like the Honda ZEST (shown above) and the Honda Life, but they’ve been reserved for the Japanese market so far. I actually drove the Honda ZEST with the turbocharged 660cc i-DSI engine last year during the visit to Honda’s R&D facility in Tochigi and it really felt quite zippy thanks to the turbocharger’s torque and the 4-speed automatic.

India’s Honda Siel has revealed that Honda is working on developing a new car smaller than the Honda Jazz for emerging markets – that’s pretty much markets such as the Indian and ASEAN market, so we may even see it in Malaysia as a contender to the likes of the Hyundai i10 and the Kia Picanto.

The powerplant is currently a question mark, but Honda Siel says the engine could possibly be under 1.0 liters in displacement. Honda has two 660cc engines – a normally aspirated version which produces 52hp at 6,700rpm and 61Nm of torque at 3,800rpm, and a turbo-ed version with a top-mounted intercooler making 64hp at 6,000rpm and 93Nm of torque at 4,000rpm.

Given that Honda’s Indian unit is the one revealing this juicy bit of info, India could most likely be the production base for the new car.

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A 70 year old man in India named Indraprakash Bhargav claims to have created a little 2+2 jeep (in the style of the recently launched Nissan KIX?) that costs only Rs 30,000 to buy, can go 40km on a liter of petrol and reach a top speed of 50km/h.

Rs30,000 is only about RM2,200 and is a decent price to pay for something that can sit 2 adults and 2 children. He claims the material costs are only about Rs15,000 to Rs20,000 (RM1,100 to RM1,470). He also says he is working on an electric version of the little jeep.

Apparently despite this project and some other automotive innovations that he’s produced in the past, the Indian government or car manufacturers paid little attention to him. He says he is willing to divulge the “secrets” of this cheap jeep for free if an industrialist like Ratan Tata is interested. No harm having a look. Anyone with money interested?

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Honda’s Indian distributor Honda Siel Cars India Ltd CEO Masahiro Takedagawa says that Honda is seriously studying the possibility of developing a small diesel engine for compact cars such as the Honda City, especially for countries such as India where diesel cars are extremely popular thanks to the 30% price difference between petrol and diesel fuel.

Honda currently has a 2.2 liter second generation diesel engine called the i-DTEC. The first generation was called the i-CTDi and some of you may remember the cute ad campaign that debuted with the engine.

India will also become a key manufacturing base for Honda’s global supply chain as certain key engine components will begin to be supplied from there. The Indian engine component plant will mainly supply the ASEAN market, so in the future our 1.5 liter i-VTEC engines in the upcoming new Honda City may come from India.

The FTA which allows special duty benefits for 8 to 10 engine components traded between the two countries allows India to enter the ASEAN engine component market. This list may be widened in the future.

And who knows, we could see a 1.4 liter Honda City i-DTEC some time in the future too! Though it may have little hope of making it onto our shores as our diesel prices are now very close to petrol prices despite having very low quality, after enjoying many years of being alot cheaper than petrol.