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October 5, 2010

No Car Discounts to Light up the Diwali Festivities

Many people, who have been postponing their car purchase to avail the discounts during the festive season, might be in for some surprise. Car makers in India have decided to cut down festival discounts to the lowest in at least three years this season. And the main culprit to blame is the booming sales that have led to waiting periods of up to five months for popular models.

And it is not just one or two, who have cut their discounts but majority of them, including Maruti Suzuki, Hyundai Motor India and Tata Motors, have done so to push sales in quarter of the financial year, normally considered the year best period.

“At a time when we are trying hard to meet the market demand, discounts don’t seem to be a viable option to boost sales,” said Mayank Pareek, managing executive officer (marketing & sales), Maruti Suzuki. Maruti is currently unable to keep pace with customer demand for nine out of its dozen models.

“While the discounts would stay, it would be around 20% less over the same period of last year,” said Mr. Pareek. If we look at the last year festival discount statistics, cars including the Maruti Alto, WagonR, Hyundai Santro, Tata Indica, Fiat Palio and Ford Fiesta were discounted up to 15-20% of their price.

But this year, it is an entirely different story. Santro had a discount of more than Rs 50,000 during the festival season in 2007, which went down to Rs 40,000 in 2008 and Rs 37,000 in 2009. The discount is expected to be lower this year.

“Where is the room for discounting when we are desperately trying all means to meet market demand,” Hyundai director sales Arvind Saxena said during the launch of the new i10 hatchback. Toyota Innova is another perfect example.

Toyota, after raising the price by up to Rs 29,000 on its complete range, is offering a discount of Rs 30,000 on its Innova MUV this year. The same vehicle was offered with a discount of Rs 60,000 in 2007, which came down to Rs 52,000 in 2008 and with a new variant being launched in 2009 carried a discount of Rs 35,000.

But there is one exception to the rule. Contrary to the others, Honda is offering freebies and discounts of up to Rs 55,000 on its Jazz hatchback. Still doubt the discounts would jazz up the sales, though. Honda is offering free insurance covers for the City, Civic and Accord models this festival season.

Car sales have shot up more than 30% in the first six months this fiscal year, and changed the rules of the game. The situation is such that there are long waiting period on several models including Maruti Swift and Eeco, Hyundai i20, Volkswagen Polo, Ford Figo, Toyota Fortuner and Tata Nano.

The rise in car demand this year is despite multiple increases in car prices. “Vehicle prices are higher due to excise duty and road taxes; interest rates are also higher,” said Mahantesh Sabarad, auto analyst, Fortune Financials.

posted by carazooblog @ Tuesday, October 5th, 2010 0 Comments links to this post

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October 5, 2010

Maruti Suzuki to Offer Discounts on New Cars, No Price Hike

Something strange is happening in the car industry. There was this price hike drama, remember? Now, all of a sudden, Maruti announces that it will not hike prices. And now for the Bonus…The car maker will instead offer discounts on specific models. Wonder why this sudden change? Maruti, which is apparently India’s largest selling car maker, has worked a wonderful plan to capitalise October being the peak month during the festival season. The car maker expects to sell 1,10,000 cars during the period.

Well, Maruti Suzuki has had a ball last month. The car maker posted its highest ever sales figures in the month of September. Guess it’s time for other players in the Indian auto market to rethink their strategies. Tata Motors, Toyota and Hyundai have already announced their price increase of their entire range.

Maruti officials say that the company is running close to 130 per cent capacity utilisation. Maruti Suzuki car sales are so high that the auto maker is already facing the problem of capacity constraints. It sold 1,08,006 units in September alone, a 29.65 per cent growth compared to September last year. Except for the M800, A-star and Estilo, all other Maruti models demand lengthy waiting periods from customers. Around 20-25 per cent of Maruti’s customers have to wait to get their new car.

The Swift DZire comes with a waiting period of 4-5 months, while the car’s hatchback version, the Swift, demands a waiting period of around 3 months. Customers have to wait for 5 months to have their new Maruti Suzuki Eeco delivered. An official said, “High utilisation is due to higher productivity. Maruti sales will not fall below 1 lakh mark.” The car maker is trying to quickly ramp up production. It has already crossed the 1 lakh units’ mark four times this fiscal.

India has grown to become one of the leading markets in car sales where auto makers are trying their best to outdo the rest. Toyota will be launching the Etios in December and Honda’s New Small car could enter the country sometime early next year. These launches are sure challenging the potential of India’s largest car maker, Maruti Suzuki.

By 2013, Maruti plans to put in around $1.3 billion and hopes to produce 1.75 million units a year by that time. The current capacity is just about 1.3 million units. An official was quoted saying, “We are not focused fundamentally on retaining market share. We want to meet demand of customers as much as possible. But for that we need production.”

Recently, the car maker’s market share in the Indian car market had slipped below 50 per cent for the first time in history. At the end of August, however, it was 51.8 per cent. But that again wasn’t too good as it was down from 53.2 per cent in the previous fiscal year and 55.1 per cent in 2008-09. However, Maruti Suzuki officials believe the demand is likely to remain strong throughout this year. Let’s hope for the same!

posted by carazooblog @ Tuesday, October 5th, 2010 0 Comments links to this post

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October 4, 2010

Ferrari in Fast Forward Mode to India: Coming in January 2011

It is not the first of April, and neither is Ferrari President and Chairman, Mr Luca Cordero di Montezemolo any compulsive liar. So when he said that the Italian company would start its business in India by January 2011, rest assured that there are no jokes involved. The announcement was made during the ongoing Paris Motor Show.

Mr Montezemolo said, “Despite the crisis, we’ll close the year better than last year, close to record levels in terms of economic results. We’ll open in India in January 2011.” Currently the Italian super car manufacturer caters to 57 countries worldwide and India will soon become its 58th in January 2011.

He also added that the company was doing exceptionally well in China. Ferrari’s China sales jumped 20 percent in the first half. Ferrari, the maker of the $228,000 California supercar, with a little assistance from rising demand in the emerging markets, will increase profit by more than 10 percent this year.

“We will close the year better than last year, with double-digit growth rate in earnings”, Montezemolo said.

Earlier Ferrari had said that it would open exclusive dealerships in India this year itself, but somehow things got a little delayed. Ferrari has already indicated that, when it enter the great Indian car market, it will involve Tata in some way, owing to the relationship the Italian carmaker shares with both Tata Motors and Fiat (which holds 85% stake in Ferrari) in India. So it is kind of obvious that Ferrari would likely tie up with Tata Motors or a sub-division of the Tata Group to distribute its cars in the country.

The first Ferrari dealerships are likely to open in Delhi or Mumbai, owing to the super high demand for luxury cars in these cities. And guess what, the first cars to hit the may be the California and 458 models. However, the cars will attract a 110% import duty; hence expect the price to be no less than Rs. 2 crore.

Apart from Ferrari, there are a lot of other sports car makers that are gearing up for their Indian innings. These include Bugatti and Aston Martin, which is readying up two showrooms in Delhi and Mumbai. The booming Indian economy and an increasingly rich population are finally getting the attention of the luxury car companies to set up shop here.

According to experts, the Indian and Chinese automobile markets will provide ample scope for premium carmakers to expand their business. In China, Ferrari has already tasted success, with a sales growth of 20% in the first quarter. We are sure that the Indian crowd won’t disappoint the sports car makers.

posted by carazooblog @ Monday, October 4th, 2010 2 Comments » links to this post

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October 4, 2010

Car Sales in India Touch a New High in September

Hyundai cars stocked up in the stock yard.

Indian car sales have zoomed through the skies once again. Car sales during the month of September were nothing if not cheerful. India’s leading automobile makers witnessed a growth of 20.6 per cent in September to 290,252 units, compared to 240,656 units in the month last year. The leading car makers in India, namely Maruti Suzuki, Hyundai Motor, Tata Motors, General Motors, Ford India, Mahindra & Mahindra, Toyota and Honda, experienced record sales this month.

Much to everyone’s expectations, Maruti Suzuki India topped the list with sales surpassing 100,000-mark in a month for the fourth time. In September, the company saw record sales 1,08006 units – a growth of 29.65 per cent over the previous year, when it had clocked sales of 83,306 units.

Hyundai Motors was close behind its biggest competitor. Hyundai sold 31,751 units in the domestic market, as compared to 27,803 units in September, 2009, a growth of 14.1 per cent. However, the company’s total sales in September stood at 51,441 units, compared to 53,802 units in the month last year — a decline of 4.4 per cent. The main reason being the decline in exports, which came as a result of European countries withdrawing the concessions given to customers on buying small cars.

Commenting on HMIL’s sales performance, Director (Marketing and Sales) Arvind Saxena said: “It is heartening to see the market on a growth trajectory and this has reflected in our sales. We achieved the highest-ever domestic sales since 1998. Hopefully, the festive season will further consolidate the growth. The launch of the new ‘next gen’ i10 should also strengthen our position in the compact car segment, as it has been received very well by the market.”

Indian car maker, Tata Motors, sold a total of 64,668 vehicles, a growth of 23 per cent over 52,513 vehicles sold in the month last year. While the commercial vehicle sales stood at 35,734 units — a 14 per cent growth over 31,474 vehicles sold in September last year, Light Commercial Vehicles (LCV) sales stood at 19,097. Medium and heavy commercial vehicles sales were at 16,637 units, with a growth of 28 per cent over September last year.

If MSI was gloating over its record sales, M&M was enjoying its triumph too. M&M posted its highest-ever sales in a month, at 35,177 units, during September, compared to 28,434 units in the month last year — a growth of 24 per cent.

M&M Chief Executive (Automotive Division) Rajesh Jejurikar said, “It is a matter of pride for us that September has been a record month for auto sales in the history of M&M, when we sold 35,177 vehicles. All our brands have done exceptionally well, with the Logan clocking a sale of 1,000 units during the month.”

With the success of its small car Figo, Ford India reported an over two-fold jump in sales to 8,380 units in September. The company had sold 3,405 units in the same month last year, Ford India said in a statement.

General Motors India saw sales shoot up by 12.58 per cent to 8,617 units in September this year from 7,654 units in the same month last year.

“The increase in sales was primarily driven by the response to Chevrolet Beat, Cruze and Spark… Other car lines have also registered impressive growth during the month,” General Motors India said in a statement.

posted by carazooblog @ Monday, October 4th, 2010 0 Comments links to this post

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October 4, 2010

The Growing Demand for Cars in India and Capacity Constraints

Volkswagen, Maruti Suzuki and many more car makers and car buyers in India are facing the same problem. Auto makers in India are facing the problem of capacity constraints which in turn are resulting in lengthy waiting periods. First the Volkswagen Polo, and now the Vento! As far as Maruti is concerned, almost all its models except the M800, Estilo and A-star make customers wait. Wonder what car buyers in the country are doing? Well, they have begun thinking of other options. They have begun rejecting models due to their never-ending waiting periods.

Neeraj Garg, member of board and director of Volkswagen Passenger Cars, Volkswagen Group Sales India, spoke of the pretty high demand for the Vento which has led to the backlog. He said, “The waiting period for Vento runs from one to one and a half month time.” Within two weeks of the car’s launch, the company had received over 4,000 booking for the Vento.

The newly launched entry level sedan comes in petrol and diesel versions and carries a tag in the range Rs 7.05 Lakh to Rs 9.31 Lakh. Mr. Garg said that VW was taking all steps to ensure early delivery of the car. The VW Polo has already been demanding a waiting period of 3-4 months since its launch in March, 2010.

The same story at the Maruti camp! Mayank Pareek, managing executive officer (marketing and sales) said, “Despite our best efforts to meet the market demand, we have not been able to produce at least 22-25 per cent of the number of units we are selling every month. This has gone up by 5-6 per cent in the past few months.”

Once booked, customers are being asked to wait for 3-5 months to have their new Maruti car delivered. Maruti Suzuki claims that demand for the Eeco has gone up from 2,000 to 7,000 between January and September. The same with the Swift and Swift DZire; bookings have increased from 7,000 to 12,000 and 5,000 to 8,000 respectively.

The car maker has been forced to come up with a solution. “We have been trying to produce more and more vehicles. From 86,000 cars in 2009-10, we now produce 1.02 lakh units every month,” Chairman R.C. Bhargava said. “From October onwards, this will be further ramped up to 1.1 lakh units per month. So, we will be producing 25,000 more cars without any significant investment.”

Maruti’s September sales grew at least 32-33 per cent, thanks to the robust domestic sales. In August, sales rose 24 per cent. “We are not focused on retaining market share but on meeting demand,” said Bhargava. “Capacity always remains a concern.”

Maruti Suzuki has sought board approval to invest Rs. 1,885 Crore to set up a fourth assembly line at Manesar with a capacity of 250,000 vehicles which is expected to be operational by early 2012. Managing director and chief executive S. Nakanishi said that exports to countries such as US and Hungry are down, but China is growing.

Chairman R C Bharghava said, “In hindsight, we can say that we were conservative. Nobody had expected this type of a boom to happen. We are not focused fundamentally on retaining market share. We want to meet demand of customers as much as possible. But for that we need production.” While many customers still stayed with the brand despite the waiting lists, some did migrate to other players, he added.

posted by carazooblog @ Monday, October 4th, 2010 0 Comments links to this post

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October 4, 2010

Jaguar C-X75 Hybrid Supercar at the Paris Motor Show

The Paris Motor Show has been flagged off and Jaguar is proudly showcasing its new supercar, the C-X75 that is all set to deliver 321.8 kmph. Jaguar’s directors want to analyse the hybrid supercar’s reception of critics and the public before deciding if it should go on sale. The new car beautifully blends the desired athletic looks and performance of a supercar with the latest green technology.

The all-new two-seater Jaguar C-X75 is believed to be carrying a 200,000-pound tag, but worth it, right? The electric hybrid supercar flaunts the latest jet-turbine technology from the aviation industry to accelerate from a standstill to 100 kmph in merely 3.5 seconds. By the way, achieving 160 kmph in just 5.5 seconds happens to be achievement number 2.

The C-X75 was already hailed as ‘The E-Type for the 21st Century’. At the Paris Auto Show, it will be scrutinized by a Government minister on a trade mission. The new Jaguar does not carry the boring and the usual internal combustion motor. It instead draws power from a lithium-ion battery charged from the domestic mains. It can run up to 109 km on four 195-bhp each electric motors, one of which drives each of four wheels. So, for the first 100+ kilometres, no harmful carbon emissions whatsoever!

Later, it connects with the two 94-bhp each rear-mounted super-efficient gas-turbines to get the extra punch of electric power. With this, it can run an additional 900 km. Just imagine the distance you can travel on a single 60 litre tank-full! The carbon emissions at this stage are minimal though; just 28 g/km. The C-X75 displayed at the Paris Motor Show has been strapped with the electric hybrid and gas turbine generator as its power source.

However, Jaguar also says that the supercar could also run on the usual petrol motor. The C-X75 can also run on diesel, biofuels, compressed natural gas or liquid petroleum gas. “A six-hour plug-in charge of the lithium-ion batteries allows an electric-only range of 68 miles,” a Jaguar spokesperson was quoted saying in the Daily Mail. “But the innovative twin-turbines can either charge the car’s batteries, allowing the supercar to travel 560 miles between fill-ups. Or it can automatically provide supplementary power directly to the electric motors to allow the car to top 205 mph.”

He added, “It celebrates three-quarters of a century of beautiful, fast, Jaguars by being the fastest and perhaps most beautiful of them all.” It is indeed the most beautiful! Storm Grey ‘Bridge of Weir’ leather seats and an aircraft-inspired cream suede-like leather and polished aluminium dashboard pamper the driver.

Soft neoprene fully covers the steering wheel. Coddling the two occupants even more is the high-end surround sound hi-fi. Then, there’s the custom-made clock which is kept wound by the car’s acceleration and braking.

The car sports phosphor blue luminescent theatre lighting inside which apparently alters to suit the driver’s mood. One can notice dimming when the supercar jumps to ‘aircraft in combat mode’ at speed or in ‘track’ mode to draw the driver’s attention even more on the driving.

In addition to the 1 billion pounds a year Jaguar spends on new models, the car maker has put in 800 million pounds into new green technology. For your info, a new small saloon and a roadster are on the cards. We also hear that Tata has agreed to become a minority shareholder in the British micro gas turbine engine company, Bladon Jets, and its association with Jaguar in the development of the hybrid supercar.

Anwar Hasan, managing director of Tata, said: “The innovative nature of Bladon Jets lies at the very heart of our ethos at Tata and it is a company we have admired for some time. Acquiring a stake in this business is recognition of this and the exciting potential their products have in the automotive and distributed power generation arenas. We look forward to continuing the already close working relationship with Bladon Jets and will take great pride in the future success of their business.”

posted by carazooblog @ Monday, October 4th, 2010 1 Comment » links to this post

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October 1, 2010

Aurangabad’s Elite Group Gets 148 Mercedes

Looks can be deceiving, and people of Aurangabad have proved it. The big shots, doctors, industrialists and lawyers, of the small town got together and placed a bulk order of not just ten or twenty Mercedes Benzs, but 148 of them.

The group of the businessmen and professionals, name the “Aurangabad Group,” came together in March after they realised that they had been thinking, independently, of buying a Mercedes-Benz. They had considered several other makes before settling on the Mercedes.

“While talking, we wondered if other well-off people in the town might want to do the same thing. If they did, we would make Aurangabad famous as the city that bought the highest number of Mercedes in a single day,” said Rahul Dhoot, a leader of the group and a prominent industrialist.

Creating history is never an easy task, neither was it any easier for this group. When one of the group members called the nearest Mercedes showroom to place the order (in nearby Pune), the salesman barely managed to be polite enough to say that he would call him, which he did not. The group fumes at the insult, and so a few of them travelled to Pune showroom and forced them to take notice.

Later, the dealer Chandravadan Bhandari, arranged a road show in Aurangabad during which the orders were finally taken. The luxury cars will be delivered this month. And not surprisingly, everyone is shocked that a small Indian town can be so rich and able.

“I have had very ordinary men in turbans, lungis and plastic flip-flops walk in and order luxury cars, one for himself and one a brother,” said Akash Bawa, a Skoda salesman in New Delhi.

Mercedes-Benz India CEO Wilfried Aulbur says that smaller Indian cities like Aurangabad are the next frontier for luxury car makers in India.

‘We are looking at a 25 per cent growth in these cities. There is a massive wealth generation happening in India and lifestyles are changing fast,” he said. The top luxury cars in India, mostly consisting of Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Audi, have witnessed a sales growth of 57 per cent between June 2009 and May 2010. The Audi A6, Mercedes E-Class and BMW 3-Series models all doubled their sales over the previous year.

Apart from the Aurangabad phenomenon, Indian car market is booming big time. In fact, Daimler expects Mercedes-Benz sales in India to rival the U.K. within a decade as rising wealth stokes demand.

While Aurangabad has got its two minutes of fame, it still has a lot of catching up to do with Ludhiana, known as the ‘Manchester of India,’ in Punjab. The community is well known for its fascination with Mercedes Benz. Of the approximately 1,800 Mercedes on the roads in Punjab, more than 900 are in Ludhiana — the highest density of Mercedes cars in India in terms of per capita ownership.

posted by carazooblog @ Friday, October 1st, 2010 2 Comments » links to this post

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October 1, 2010

Maruti Reports Highest Ever Monthly Sales in September

Maruti Suzuki India is back on track. After the recent shock Maruti received of its market share falling below 50 per cent for the first time in history, the car maker rose to fight it out. A sibling to its best seller, the Alto, was launched and named Alto K10. Maruti also launched CNG variants of five of its most popular models followed by the launch of the limited edition SX4.

Maruti’s strategy seems to be working in its favour. We do not know if the market share drama is over yet, but the country’s largest selling car maker, Maruti Suzuki India, once again beat all its previous records and reported its highest-ever monthly sales of 1,08,006 units in September. That translates into a growth of 29.65 per cent over September 2009. September 2009 saw sales of just 83,306 units.

“This is the highest ever total monthly sales by the company. The previous highest was 1,04,791 units in August, 2010,” said Maruti Suzuki India (MSI) in a statement. This happens to be the fourth time during the current financial year that Maruti’s monthly sales figures crossed the one lakh mark.

September has been quite good to Maruti. Maruti had increased prices of all its cars, except the Alto. In spite of it, Maruti Suzuki posted its best-ever sales. Maruti is truly India’s favourite building fuel-efficient, cost effective cars for the Indians. The car maker’s domestic sales rose 32.9 per cent compared to the corresponding period last year. While Maruti sold 71,594 units in September 2009, it managed to impress 95,148 customers in September this year. Maruti Suzuki’s exports surged 9.78 per cent in September this year to 12,858 units from 11,712 units in September 2009.

Sadly, India’s iconic model which was once Maruti’s bread-and-butter earner, the M800, is seeing slow sales. Maruti 800 car sales declined 49.86 per cent to 1,608 units as compared to 3,207 units sold during September 2009. The A2 segment happens to be India’s favourite car section, and Maruti, the country’s favourite car maker. Maruti’s A2 segment comprising the Alto, New WagonR, Estilo, Swift, A-Star and Ritz, experienced growth of 31.26 per cent growth to 68,921 units from 52,508 units sold during September last year.

Sales of Maruti’s A3 segment comprising the Maruti SX4 and DZiRE sedans surged 43.16 per cent to 10,531 units from 7,356 units sold in September last year. On the whole, passenger car sales grew by 32.95 per cent to 94,882 last month in comparison with 71,368 units sold during September 2009. Sales numbers of 5,96,978 units sold during the first six months of this fiscal prove that car sales have grown 26.23 per cent more than the same period last year. 4,72,917 units of Maruti Suzuki cars were sold during the corresponding period a year ago.

posted by carazooblog @ Friday, October 1st, 2010 0 Comments links to this post

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October 1, 2010

Hindustan Motors to Launch New Cars after 26 Long Years

The original wheels of India began their drive on the Indian roads in 1958 and around 800 units of the car are sold every month even now. Yes, we are speaking about the Hindustan Motors Ambassador. However, after the launch of the Ambassador, it seemed like the car maker was driven into a long sleep. The Contessa, of course, was launched sometime in between in 1984. It failed to impress the finicky Indian though.

The Contessa was a status symbol back then, but just for a while. Sadly, the car was phased out. For the last few quarters, HM has been suffering losses of around Rs 20 Crore a quarter. Now, after 26 long years, one of Asia’s oldest passenger car makers has finally opened its eyes to the changes around.

We hear the buzz too. Hindustan Motors is thinking of launching a third passenger car brand after more or less 26 years. The car maker is finally working out a strategy to revive the brand. Hindustan Motors’ net worth was Rs 164 crore as on June 30, 2010, while accumulated loss was around Rs 152 crore, representing an erosion of around 92.5 per cent. Following that, the brand was set to refer to Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction.

The over 70-year-old Hindustan Motors had also been subjected to financial restructuring very recently that resulted in infusion of Rs 40 Crore in the company. Hindustan Motors MD Manoj Jha said that the company would launch 6-7 variants in next 15-20 months. That will be quite a good comeback. Surprisingly, HM also states that all the variants will carry completely different looks.

Manoj Jha indicated that 4 variants would be introduced under the umbrella brand of Ambassador while the car maker is planning to introduce a new brand for two variants. “We may introduce a new brand as well. We will use Ambassador brand for other variants,” he said. Manoj Jha indicated that the new brand may be launched in 12-15 months.

The CK Birla company said that it would consider launching variants of the Ambassador while exploring options to use idle capacity for contract manufacturing. A new variant of the Ambassador will be launched in India by end of this year, and the engine will be supplied by a global leader in engine technology.

Jha said HM would increase the number of dealers to 200 from 75 as well as the number of service centres. “We want more people to use the Ambassador for personal use rather than for commercial purposes (taxi),” he said.

Manoj Jha said the string of measures would make the company operationally profitable by the end of this fiscal. It hasn’t won a lottery. When a company’s net worth is fully eroded, it is referred to the BIFR, and to prevent itself from slipping into the charges of the Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction (BIFR), Hindustan Motors (HM) had raised Rs 40 Crore.

It had sold a property in Chennai and shares of auto component maker Avtec to other CK Birla group companies. This money will hopefully assist the car maker tide itself over the crisis till December. The promoters are also expected to chip in with funds.

Jha said he expected HM’s all three plants, Uttarpara in Bengal, Chennai in Tamil Nadu and Indore in Madhya Pradesh to become self sufficient by the last quarter. “We have reached the inflexion point.” HM is indeed seeing a revival. The Uttarpara plant and the Ambassador which were of late being treated as a liability will no longer be looked at in that manner. Way to go Hindustan Motors!

posted by carazooblog @ Friday, October 1st, 2010 0 Comments links to this post

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October 1, 2010

2011 Volkswagen Passat Unveiled at the Paris Motor Show

Seems like a long time, but just a few weeks back we had posted some spy pictures of the 2011 Volkswagen Passat. And now the German company has unveiled the 2011 Passat luxury sedan at the 2010 Paris Motor Show. Before you start hoping for the best, we will prepare you for the worst. The new model is not a total upgrade, but just a facelift.

The Volkswagen Passat 2011 has been christened as the ’7th Generation’ model. As we expected, the new model gets sharper design treatment, much like the rest of the Scirocco inspired models like the new Jetta, Vento and Polo etc.

The new Passat 2011 features a new grille with abundant of chrome garnish, and the complementing headlights add some more glamour to the car. The car also features daytime running LED lights on the outer corners. The taillamps get the LED treatment and an angular design as opposed to the current model’s round lights, to gel with the sharper lines of the new Passat.

The new interiors have borrowed heavily from the VW Phaeton and hence you would see new trim options. Adding a classy touch to the interiors are new dials and an analogue clock. New safety features in the 2011 Passat include an auto-brake system as a part of the car’s Automatic Distance Control system.

This system automatically applies brakes at speeds of less than 28 km/h in case the car detects a chance of an accident due to negligence on the driver’s or pedestrian’s part. Similarly the system can also auto-accelerate in case it senses the chance of a rear-end collision and after it ensures that there is enough room in front. Too much automation I guess, but we can decide upon the practicality of the feature once the car is on road.

Engine options in the new Volkswagen Passat include a 1.6-litre 105PS diesel engine (yes, the same one that powers the Vento), mated to a start-stop system that enhances fuel efficiency. Other diesels engine options include 140hp and 170hp versions of VW’s 2.0-litre TDI CR. More engine options are added unfold in the form of a 1.4-litre TSI, 1.8-litre TSI, 2.0-TSI and 3.6-litre V6 petrol powerplants.

Among all these, we hope to see the 1.6 (105hp) and 2.0 TDI (170hp) diesels and the 1.8 TSI (160hp) petrol engine in the Indian market. The 2011 Passat will reach the US and Europe markets by early 2011. In India, it is expected to be launched around June 2011.