Indian Autos blog

Volvo will continue to be an independent division of Geely, headquartered in Sweden. We will directly report to Volvo in Sweden. (For India) we will continue with our own plans that have been announced earlier, which includes new products and network expansion.

Volvo Auto India Managing Director Paul de Voijs said when asked to react on the Volvo-Geely development.

The Toyota Etios was developed to beat the Suzuki Swift and the Dzire

By Swift twins we mean Swift and Swift Dzire.

Toyota will launch an all-out attack on Suzuki in December 2010 when its second plant in Bidadi, Karnataka will start producing the Etios hatchback and sedan, which will debut internationally in India.

The Toyota Etios will be 10% more fuel efficient than the Suzuki Swift and should be slightly more spacious as well.

Toyota Kirloskar managing director Hiroshi Nakagawa -

The car’s exact price, we expect to be in the range of Swift and Dzire cars. We plan to sell 70,000 units in 2011. Despite lot of features and high quality, Etios will have a localisation level of around 75% initially and then will be increased to 100% in the near future

Toyota will concentrate on the local demand for the first year and from the second year onwards, exports will begin. ASEAN and African regions will see ‘Made in India’ on their Toyota Etioses.

If Toyota have got a very strong contender that is better than the Swift in every imaginable way, then Suzuki’s fitting reply could be in the form of the new gen Swift that is expected to debut at the Paris Motor Show in late 2010.

click through for Etios twins Image Slideshow

The Chery QQ3 has utterly ruined GM’s plot for the Spark in China

After sales of the Chevrolet Spark was battered by the introduction of its clone QQ3 from Chinese manufacturer Chery earlier this decade, GM has been left with very few options. They’ve delayed the launch of the new Spark as the Chery clone, according to China Car Times sells in China like ‘free cocaine’!

The Chery QQ3 looks almost identical to the Spark, and costs a fraction.

To keep the Spark alive, GM has planned to add a few plastic bits to the exterior and a raised suspension. The Chinese Spark uses a 1.2-liter petrol engine. The steering wheel and dashboard have also been modified, but will it be enough for the Chinese to look away from the QQ3 and towards the original?

The 500,000th Fiat 500 is a testament to the love people have on this car world over

The 500,000th Fiat 500 model, a Funk White 1.2 with Start&Stop technology, rolled out of the production line day before yesterday at Fiat’s Tychy plant in Poland.

This milestone has been achieved in just 21 months is considered as one of the biggest hits of all time in the history of Fiat Automobiles.

The 500 has won all sorts of awards and accolades and we won’t be surprised to see the production number race past one million within the next couple of years. Around 80% of sales come from the top-end models in 83 countries with India being one of them.

The 500 isn’t all looks by the way. It is Euro NCAP 5 Star car, which makes it possible the safest buy in the city car segment. It comes with fuel saving technology and recently acquired more green credentials with the addition of a twin cylinder Multiair engine.

Below is the top ten markets for the Fiat 500:

1. Italy (244,755 units)
2. France (58,425)
3. Great Britain (51,445)
4. Germany (48,319)
5. Holland (13,682)
6. Switzerland (10,765)
7. Spain (10,103)
8. Belgium (9548)
9. Japan (9030)
10. Austria (8648)

The ‘Urbanic’ name could be used on the Megacity brand of cars

BMW has filed trademark registrations for a number of car names. These names don’t necessarily have to be used on future cars. BMW could register some to block rivals Audi, Mercedes Benz and VW from using them.

Common sense dictates Hyundai cannot use the ‘i’ badge on its 800cc small car. Observing the current range of i cars, the small car would be an i5 or an i7. The i5 could have suited that car well as Hyundai could have looked to leverage on the success of the i10 and i20 world over.

New names that belong to BMW -

i1, i2, i3, i4, i5, i6, i7, i8, i9 and E1, E2, E3, E4, E5, E6, E7, E8, E9, M50d, Urbanic, Gran Coupe, Compactive, and Compactive Tourer.

Autocar UK says the Urbanic is a trim level for the Mega City project which Peter Kronschnabl, Managing Director of BMW India confirmed isn’t developed for India. The Gran Coupe is a four-door coupe 6-Series and the compactive could be applied for the 3 Series GT, which in all possibility could find many buyers in India.

Will it cost Nissan the earth to build and market a convertible in India?

Why can’t manufacturers try selling cabriolets in parts of India? They sell CNG vehicles in places that have the infrastructure for them, so why can’t they sell Cabriolets in regions where the weather is pleasant mostly.

Can you find more excuses for why Nissan should flex the V-Platform to bring out a convertible Micra for India?

Globally, the current generation Micra has a convertible variant named C+C which was designed at the new London-based Nissan Design Europe studio, developed at the Nissan Technical Centre Europe at Cranfield, Bedfordshire and built at the Washington plant.

The electric folding glass roof is manufactured by Karmann coachworks and the vehicle sports a 2+2 seating arrangement. The rear seats are only meant for small children and shopping bags, so the practicality part, which is important for the Indian customer is out of the window.

As far as we know, Nissan will build only three vehicles using the V-Platform and those are the Micra, Micra sedan and Note MPV. Have they forgotten about the C+C or have they deliberately not reveled those plans?

But why practicality reasons stop Nissan from selling a convertible in India? Wouldn’t you perceive Nissan differently if they sold possibly India’s first mass-produced convertible (leave the San Storm out)? I don’t think brands like Hyundai, Maruti or Tata are interested in convertibles. If Nissan wants to stand out, they should build some peculiar cars to keep everyone interested.

Volkswagen’s smallest new platform internally named MHB will form the base for the forthcoming Up! small car, which according to rumors will be build in the company’s Pune facility in 2012-13.

The small car platform will not stop with the Up! Brands like Seat and Skoda will make use of it to make their own small cars. Seat plans to call it Ros while Skoda’s Up! could be the Tata Nano Europa slayer.

It doesn’t make sense for VW to stop with just a hatchback. It could make use of the cheap platform to bring out a wide variety of body styles like a sedan, MPV, coupe and convertible.

The Up! will come with a choice of two diesel and one petrol engine. A 1-liter, 1.2-liter TDI and a 1.2-liter TSI will be on offer. We suspect VW will offer the Indian Up! with a smaller petrol engine, perhaps a sub-1 liter engine could be in the works.

By exhibiting a Up! with electric powertrain, VW has expressed its interest in the field of electric vehicles and technology even for its smallest vehicles. The first e-Up! could enter foreign markets in three years time.

The next generation Verna looks brisk and is miles ahead of the current Verna

Wow!

For an instant, you might mistake the plum red Hyundai for the Sonata YF. But look closely at the rear quarter glass panel and the sloping roof.

What you see here is the next generation Hyundai Verna/Accent (code : RB) that will be manufactured at the company’s Chennai facility. We speculate the RB will be launched in India by the end of 2011 with an all-new powertrain. We have also heard of reports in the past that structurally, the i20 could underpin this sedan.

We understood that the regular CRDi engines and larger displacement 4 pot petrols will rest under the new Verna’s hood. There are also chances for the 1.6 GDi that produces 140bhp to make it on to the RB, but the Indian RB is likely to feature traditional CRDI engines and to the maximum extent, a petrol engine with variable valve timing – which again is our best guess.

We also hear that Hyundai will introduce refreshed Verna Transform in India shortly and that to us will only place a giant blot on Hyundai’s design language. On one hand there’s the fluidic design sculpture scheme used in excess on the Sonata and flowing lines on the i20 that keeps us interested. Then there’s this bipetal alien in the form of the new Verna Transform which frankly speaking is the worst facelift (they should call it the Hyundai ‘Accednt’) we’ve witnessed recently.