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Tuesday, 14 July 2009
 This year the budget has not smiled all that much on the Indian car industry as excise duty reduction has been provided only on high-end cars and SUVs. In order to pass on the benefits of this to the customers, every car manufacturer is disclosing the amount of discounts. Initially, at the time of announcement of the excise duty cut, most car manufacturers announced that they will be reducing prices but Honda appeared reluctant as they believed that the pressure of depreciation of the rupee is high and it would be difficult to reduce prices. But soon it was realized that by not reducing prices, sales could be affected drastically as almost all other car manufacturers planned to go ahead with slashing prices. Honda Accord prices and Honda CR-V prices have dropped by Rs 5000. Though, it isn’t a substantial reduction in price, it still counts as a discount. As Honda has plans to increase the prices of its models in the coming days, this would probably be a good time to purchase one. As per the revised pricing, Honda Accord 2.4 Automatic now costs Rs 18,42,000 against the previous Rs 18,47,000. The Manual transmission variant - Honda Accord 2.4 MT - stands at Rs 17,67,000. Honda Accord 3.5 V6 now costs Rs 24,75,000, Honda CR-V Manual Transmission is at Rs 22,87,000, and CR-V Automatic is priced at Rs 23,57,000. All mentioned prices are Ex-Showroom New Delhi. Labels: Honda-Accord, Honda-CR-V, Honda-Motors
Friday, 10 July 2009
The 2009-2010 Budget is what changed the face of big cars in India in just a week’s time. The cars are now much cheaper, but still do not leave the small car segment jealous. Most of the companies do not seem to be very enthusiastic about this small cut in the excise duty, as they were expecting for more. Hindustan Motors has already raised its opinion regarding this, but whatever said and done, the companies are reducing the prices of their big car models strongly believing in “something is better than nothing”. The big car manufacturers should be happy and compare themselves with the small car segment along with the auto parts and the tyre industry, which was not even glanced at by the government. Hindustan Motors was first to come up with a reduced price tag for partner Mitsubishi’s big car models namely Outlander, Pajero, and Montero cars. This announcement was soon followed by Ford and Honda, slashing their prices on their cars up to Rs 6,000. Honda had initially announced that the company was not planning for price reduction because of the depreciating rupee in the global market, but the decision was changed overnight and the company reduced Rs. 5,000 on its luxury sedan Accord and SUV CR-V. Hyundai on Wednesday slashed the price of its premium sedan Sonata Transform by Rs 5,000. Volvo, who didn’t want to lag behind in this price-slashing frenzy, cut almost Rs 4 lakh on its sports utility car Volvo XC90. And now Nissan has also joined the legion by cutting Rs 5,000 on its SUV, X-Trail, which will be now priced between Rs 20.35 lakh and Rs 24.65 lakh and Teana for Rs 21.42 lakh. With the announcement from other auto giants such as Tata, BMW, Toyota pending, the dedication of the companies to pass on the benefits to the car customers should be appreciated, but the most haunting thought is that whether these slash in prices would really urge the customers to buy big cars. A reduction of Rs 5,000 or Rs 6,000 is not going to benefit the big car buyers as most of these cars are heavily priced. Labels: Hindustan-Motors, Honda-Motors, Volvo-XC90
Thursday, 2 July 2009
Honda Siel is relaxing a bit after the launch of its first small car Jazz in India. But now it looks like that the relaxing period is over and they are back to work with new plans and strategies. The car brand had upgraded its sedan Honda City making it more charming and now it is time for the sporty model Civic is said to get a facelift. Off late Civic has not been tinkered for the last few years after it had been launched. But this time Honda plans to do a lavish maker over for this ‘hot’ sedan. The Honda Civic is already a striking car with trendy design, commendable performance, and luxurious features. Some of the minor changes that the car is speculated to carry are tweaked nose, impressive five sided geometric edge grille which replaces the existing smiley grille. An upgraded front bumper with sporty dynamism is a revelation to the Civic. The stunning sedan will have re-designed tail lamps with squared-out-edges while retaining the “after-burner” look. The price tag will be a little premium that this car will be carrying. In a typical Honda mid-life tweak, the new face-lifted Honda Civic would go on sale before an all-new model from Honda is expected in 2011. Labels: Honda-Civic, Honda-Motors
Thursday, 21 May 2009
Did you know that we have been buying cars that have never been designed for us in the first place? It has now been revealed that even the most popular cars like Maruti Suzuki Alto and Swift Hatch were never actually made for Indians. According to a leading financial daily, the country has witnessed sales of over 15 lakh cars and utility vehicles in the last fiscal, and not one of them was designed for Indian users. Car manufacturers design vehicles based on data on physical attributes of users and the target place and audience. The physical attributes are important to determine headroom, legroom, height of the seat, shoulder space, height of the pedals and many other features. In order to set right the wrongs, Pune-based Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI) is conducting a study on India specific physical attributes and changes that car manufacturers selling their products in the country need to make. The study is called anthropemetric data. The results of the study are expected to be out by 2010. Car manufacturers in India are believed to be using dummies created on physical attributes of users in the United States, European, Korean, and Japanese as most popular car makers hail from these countries. Even during the crash test which is used to determine safety of individuals travelling in the car, they have used dummies that do not confirm to Indian physical standards. As no such data was available until date, Maruti Suzuki designed dummies based on data created for U.S. and Japanese users. Even Mahindra and Mahindra which has designed top sellers such as Scorpio, Xylo and Bolero uses estimated standards from SAE International, a global association of engineers from automobile, aerospace and heavy transport vehicle sector. Now, car manufacturer are keen on designing vehicle for Indian buyers. Just as car manufacturers like Honda Motors and Maruti Suzuki are eager to launch India-specific vehicles like Jazz and Ritz, the day may not be far when the interiors too will mirror Indian tastes. Labels: Honda-Motors, Indian-Car-Manufacturers, Maruti-Suzuki
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