Indian Autos blog

Our Chakan facility is operating in full steam…customers won’t have to wait for too long for the Vento. We are going to cut the lead time (waiting period). It would be about 3-4 months in general.

Volkswagen India’s Chief general manager (marketing) Lutz Kothe talks to Financial Express on the ridiculous waiting period for the Volkswagen Polo in India

General Motors has pushed out a few electric Cruzes in Seoul, South Korea. Before you ask me when it’ll come to India, let me inform you these are just part of a test program. General Motors isn’t interested in putting them into production anywhere in the world. Not just yet.

Named Cruze BEV, the electric Cruze will go from 0-60mph in just 8.2 seconds and will accelerate to till about 165kph.

The test vehicle, in a single charge, will run for around 100 miles using its 31 kWh battery pack. A full charge out of a 220V socket will take about 8 hours. Just like the Volt, this e-Chevy will have its battery packs mounted to its underbody

click through to read the press release for all the information.

Both the Ace Zip and Venture from the Tata Motors stable are compact commercial vehicles. They will be launched in a phased manner across India through the course of the next few months.

The Ace Zip (left) uses a watercooled 611cc diesel engine while the Venture has to make do with a 1.4-liter diesel engine found on the Indica for the taxi market.

The Ace Zip’s interiors are familiar if you have traveled on the Tata Nano. The gear lever, steering wheel and the door release knob are some of the items that I can point out that have come from the Nano. The Ace Zip is expected to reach dealer showrooms by the end of this year.

The Venture (right) on the other hand has a lot of Indica Vista components inside its cabin. Part of the dashboard, the steering wheel, door locks are acquired from the Vista. There’s a lot of parts sharing going on in Tata’s camp, parts are being tossed from the passenger car division into the commercial vehicle’s section, which makes awesome business sense (cuts costs) and faster development time.

Thanks to Neeraj Setpal for these pictures!

Just like the Figo replaced the Fusion in India, Ford B-Max will replace the Fusion in the European Region. It will be based on the Fiesta’s platform (Ford’s Global B-Platform) but will be offered in MPV, two-wheel drive and four-wheel drive SUV form.

The company wants to continue its UAV (Urban Activity Vehicle) concept that it started with the Fusion and wants to evolve it further. We are guessing that the B-MAX will have 1-1.2L petrol engine churning out anywhere between 89bhp to 108bhp and possibly a hot version with a 1.6L engine maxing at 148 bhp

Ford wants to produce 100,000 models of the B-MAX this year from their Craiova plant in Romania. Will there be a B-Max that Indians can buy in the next few years?

Nissan has managed to sell 54000 Micras all across the globe. These include bookings from Thailand, India and even hometown Japan.

The Micra was first launched in Thailand earlier this year & made its debut in India a couple of months back. It is slated for its European launch in November (The Micra is sold as the March in certain other countries) In Thailand alone the company has received 26,000 bookings for the car.

In India too the car had a fantastic 1st month. In the month of August the car crossed sales of 1,000 units despite Nissan’s thin dealership network.

Nissan hopes to achieve a sales mark of a million units by 2013 from all the 3 models ( Micra Hatch, Sedan & MPV) based on the V platform.

The Micra has hit the jackpot and Nissan has reacted well. It added a second shift to their Chennai plant as exports are to begin shortly. Buoyed by this success, Akihisa Suzuki, Global Chief Marketing Manager of Nissan Motors said, “We want to reach one million units by 2013, for the three models based on the new platform V.”

Despite of the controversial styling, the Nissan Micra is a good buy especially for the goodies that it packs in. Features like keyless entry, start stop button which is available on Micra, generally start at D segment sedans like the Chevrolet Cruze. Even the basic model is loaded with useful features, but customers in India have preferred the top-end model that comes with the aforementioned features. It has also received the ‘Most Environmental friendly Car of the Year’ award in Thailand. This combination of value, features, and responsibility makes the Micra sell like hot cakes.

Here’s the full version of the Chevrolet Beat Ad which is one of the better ads of 2010.

Ever since the Ford Figo was introduced in India with similar prices, people haven’t been talking much about the Chevrolet Beat, which over Figo in modernness and design. GM India will look to bounce back and reach bigger volumes with the introduction of the Beat diesel next year which should the smallest car in India with the smallest diesel engine.

The Chevrolet Aveo production model will be shown at the Paris Motor Show this month. Prior to that, Chevrolet wants to ensure everyone has seen the vehicle digitally and hence this video featuring stills that were released a while back.

The new Aveos (sedan and hatchback) are going to be manufactured here in India and fitted with 1.2-liter petrol and 1.3-liter diesel engines.

What the video does is zooms into every aspect of the car so that you get a solid idea on what it’s about.

High speed testing of Ford’s Euro Fiesta is in full swing as the company is all set to bring the new Fiesta (hopefully in both sedan and hatchback body styles) to India next year.

Ford is testing more than one Fiesta around its facility in Chennai. These vehicles are being driven to their limits on the highways leading to Chennai city. This photograph clicked by our reader Rajesh for example was clicked when the vehicle was doing three digit speeds.

Ford’ mule drivers also exploring places with potholes and places where roads are literally absent. There could also be a new engine on test, perhaps a 1.4-liter EcoBoost engine is working under the bonnet, who knows?

We can’t guess the powertrains Ford will offer on the new Fiesta. There could be a 1.4-liter Duratorq diesel as well as the option of an automatic transmission. The success of the Figo might prompt Ford to introduce the more expensive Fiesta hatch seen testing here for which pricing will be key no doubt.

Have you seen a secret vehicle like this one? Send in your images to notjustshrawan (at) gmail.com and get featured here!