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More Honda Gearless Scooters For India
CKD Duty Rates Increased 3 Folds For Most CKD Units
Bajaj Ready With Ultra Low Cost Car Prototypes By End of 2011
Hero Group Setting Up Own R&D Facility In India
Tata Nano For Sri Lanka, Thailand, Indonesia and Africa
Mahindra World SUV W201 India Launch Expected In April–May 2011
Audi Q6 SUV- BMW X6 Competitor Coming Soon

Posted: 23 Mar 2011 03:26 AM PDT

Honda is growing strong in the two wheeler market in India with its leading area being gearless scooters. In India, the gearless scooter segment is ace of Honda. Honda Activa is the most popular gearless scooter in India, Honda Aviator being the another product which is not so popular in India. Customers are willing to wait for long waiting periods to get their Activa. There is competition like Suzuki Access, TVS Wego, Hero Honda Pleasure, Bajaj Crystal, Mahindra Rodeo etc. but none of them is as popular as is the Activa. This customer support has encouraged Honda to work on more gearless scooters for India. Also the growing demand for gearless scooters in India both in rural and urban areas makes all the more business sense to come up with more of such products.

Honda Motorcycles and Scooters India (HMSI) President and CEO, Shinji Aoyama quoted:

Demand for gear-less scooters will be more in Tier II and III cities. We will continue to manufacture more scooters to meet demand in the domestic market.

HMSI is also going to add 100 new dealerships to its existing 1200 dealerships in India by financial year 2012. The new plant of HMSI at Rajasthan will also be operational by July 2011 which will help increase the production and will bring down the waiting time of Activa which is as high as 4 months. The new plant will add an additional capacity of about 6 lakhs units per year once its operational. This capacity will be eventually increased to 12 lakh units from the Rajasthan plant only. The sales estimate for the financial year 2011-12 is approximately 21 lakh units which is about 27% higher than the previous fiscal.

CKD Duty Rates Increased 3 Folds For Most CKD Units

Posted: 23 Mar 2011 01:53 AM PDT

The Indian Union Budget of 2011 has upset the Indian automobile market quite well with the definition change of the CKD (completely knocked down units) to SKD (semi-knocked down units) which was later clarified by the Govt. of India. The change of definition brought a wave of unrest among the automakers who import their car components in India as partially assembled units like engines and transmission units. The definition change resulted in a rise of about 6 folds in the duty from 10% to 60%. After the clarification though, the worries of the automakers lessened, but the recent developments seem to be again disturbing for the car and bike manufacturers. The impact hits mostly the International brands which get their engines, transmissions and other vital components into India and assemble and sell them in India.

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As per the latest information, the duty on CKD kits have been increased 3 folds to 30% from the previous rate of 10%. Engine and transmission are the two exceptional components which will still attract only 10% of the duty, rest all the CKD units will attract 3 times the duty. In simple language, it means that the luxury cars or cars with imported CKD units or kits installed with see a sharp price increase in India. The car companies may absorb some part of this additional duties, but major part will be passed on to the consumers.

This step is intended to promote local manufacturing of the components in India by the international brands which may give a boost to Indian economy. But such abrupt and sharp rises in duties may upset the long term strategies of International auto makers, which in some cases my repel them more compared to attracting them to set up local plants for everything in India. This step is most likely to impact the rapid growth of Indian automobile industry in an adverse way at least for the short term growth perspective.

Bajaj Ready With Ultra Low Cost Car Prototypes By End of 2011

Posted: 23 Mar 2011 01:24 AM PDT

Bajaj is almost ready with the Ultra Low Cost or ULC car prototypes and will be able to showcase them by the end of year 2011 to Renault. Bajaj MD, Mr. Rajiv Bajaj quoted

We are dead serious about the car project. Some time later this year, in fact in a matter of months, we will be able to show Renault the prototypes.

Rajiv also expressed that they are committed to the development of the car as per the original agreement with Renault-Nissan. The car will be a small car which will compete head on with the world's cheapest car Tata Nano. The price of ULC will be kept close to Rs. 1.5 Lakhs. It will be a very high mileage car – claimed to be up to 30 KMPL mileage.

However, Rajiv also expressed his concerns over the acceptance of the car by Renault. If Renault is not not convinced with the ULC prototypes, Bajaj may sell it under their own brand or some other ways. More details will come up once the prototype is revealed. Lets wait and watch how this ULC will come out to be and will it give Tata Nano a hard time? Well, we can't say anything as of now, lets wait and watch.

Hero Group Setting Up Own R&D Facility In India

Posted: 23 Mar 2011 01:07 AM PDT

Hero Honda (now Hero Group) had been associated with Honda for a very long time. Recently, after the split, Hero Group is working its ways to continue to retain its good position in Indian market. Hero group is not only spending heavily on brand identity, but also serious about setting up its own research and development facilities here in India. Earlier, Honda R&D was used for Hero Honda alliance and Hero group was not much into the engine, powertrain and other technology research. But after the split, the new equation comes into pictures and Hero group has started its effort to recruit the R&D team for its product and technology research operations in India.

The R&D positions will most likely be filled by the rival company employees, which will mean some talent loss and attrition to the rivals. However, coming up of an indigenous R&D center will be a good step for Hero group in the longer run to retain their number one position in the Motorcycles market in India.

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Hero Honda / Hero Group News

Tata Nano For Sri Lanka, Thailand, Indonesia and Africa

Posted: 23 Mar 2011 12:31 AM PDT

Tata Nano will soon be exported to the Asian and African countries which are similar to the Indian automobile markets. Tata Motors has decides to start Tata Nano exports to Thailand, Indonesia, Sri Lank and Africa by the end of 2011. The decision has been taken to improve the global sales and presence of the popular Tata Nano. These exports will help Tata make some additional revenue and boost the sales of Nano. The export volumes will not be very high in the beginning, but gradually, based on the customer feedback and sales figures, the exports will be scaled up to the these countries.

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Tata Motors India News

Mahindra World SUV W201 India Launch Expected In April–May 2011

Posted: 22 Mar 2011 10:45 PM PDT

Mahindra & Mahindra has been working on a new SUV code-named as Mahindra W201 for quite some time now and it is being reported that the same will will launched in the Indian Automobile market during April – May 2011. Since all the buyers are now bored with the current models, this new product could prove to be a hit if liked by the customers.

Evidently the car's overall appearance resembles the Jeep Cherokee to an extent but obviously it won't be as expensive as the Cherokee is. The car is heading towards the segment comprising of Chevrolet Captiva and Ford Endeavour and is said to perform better than the above two.

Strikingly the company's signature grille is absent from this new product and the new grille is quite attractive. It seems huge, powerful and mean but all these qualities aren't enough to attract buyers since they always opt for the value for money vehicles and considering the successful and unsuccessful life of Endeavour and Captiva respectively, it needs to offer everything at the best pricing.

A 2-3-2 seating arrangement and a 5-pot engine are the known characteristics of this car and believing in sources the initial production has already started and bookings will start from April or May in all probability. In fact several mechanics from various dealerships have also been sent to Mahindra's factory in order to go through a product training on the same.

Now with the car's launch so close even we are extremely excited to see what the brand will offer and we want to wish them luck.

Audi Q6 SUV- BMW X6 Competitor Coming Soon

Posted: 22 Mar 2011 10:30 PM PDT

With the introduction of BMW X6, BMW defined a new type of car which incorporated the typical coupe design with the sportiness of an SUV. Till date there has been no competition for the same but things are going to get difficult for the brand very soon as Audi is planning to launch a new SUV specifically designed for the segment comprising of the X6.

For the X6 the response has been overwhelming, globally and taking into account the popularity of it Audi CEO Rupert Stadler recently said that the company will come up with a new model based on the Audi Q5 as well as Audi Q7.

Although no specifications are available as of now, the car is very much expected to sport the design cues of a coupe along with an engine adopted from the Q7 family.

Apart from the convectional gasoline engine the company also plans to launch an unconventional Hybrid variant of the same based on the Volkswagen Touareg and Porsche Cayenne Hybrid. It is also being rumored that the new model is to sport a 4.0 Liter V8 heart powerful enough to make it emerge out of the crowd.

The reason for this new car is supposed to be numerous requests coming from the brand's Chinese and North American subsidiaries for a counterpart of the X6 since the latter is getting appreciable sales figures of at least 30 units each year clearly telling the demand and popularity of such vehicles in all the markets across the globe.

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