Indian Autos blog

VW has been consistently striving to reach the position of the Numero Uno Auto Manufacturer in the world. The race is between General Motors, Volkswagen and Toyota and these three brands are neck and neck at this time. IndianAutosBlog.com has been tracking their fight to the top since early 2011.

The German czar that controls most of the automotive brands such as Lamborghini, Porsche, Skoda, Bentley, SEAT, Audi, Bugatti and many more, has been making huge waves in the international automotive scene.

In a bid to reach the summit, VW has lined up investments worth 86 billion dollars (4 trillion Indian rupees) in the next five years

This mountain of moolah will be spent on the on new manufacturing facilities, vehicles, and research and development for the carmaker’s nine brands. Volkswagen will revamp and improve the current product offerings across its brands. Currently, VW has about 62 manufacturing facilities across the world. The company has drawn up plans to extend it to 70 by 2016.

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After finding a home in Gujarat, Peugeot Citroën is opening up about the strategy to tap the Indian market. Business Standard is reporting that like Volkswagen, Nissan and Renault, Peugeot Citroën will follow a ‘Top Down’ approach in India.

Essentially what it means is the company will bring its niche products followed by mass market models. Most companies that enter a new market follow this approach because it is a safe bet.

When an automotive company enters a new market, it is strained for resources. With inadequate dealerships and service centers, targeting the masses can become a handful. Niche products can be easily sold and serviced and act as brand builders.

As the brand becomes stronger and the presence of the company is increased over the years, the company attains a stronger position to target masses. Going into segments on higher levels also provides less headaches as the competition is relatively low.

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Police vehicles have a extensive aura associated with them; be it Lamborghinis of the Italian Police, Supercharged Holdens of the Australian Police or Ford Crown Victorias of the American cops they all have a brutish, aggressive image of fighting crime bulldogs out to save the city from the deadly clutches of thieves, murderers and rapists.

The gunnery associated with these police vehicles and the mere sight of them with their beacons flashing away from a distance has thieves wetting their pants.

The Mumbai Police, on the other hand, is adopting a rather cutesy way of fighting crime.

The dwindling sales of Nano has made Tata Motors think new and unique target audience. Currently, the company plans to sell Nanos to the Mumbai police as a Patrol vehicle. The idea is that the Nano can act as a secondary car which will replace the bikes for night patrolling.

A senior police officer had this to say to DNA Newspaper -

We use motorcycles to do patrolling in narrow lanes in the city. However, Nano car has more than one advantage, while it takes less parking space as compared to other Sedan cars, it can replace bikes as far as doing night patrolling is concerned and weapons can also be stored in the duct of the car

The image that you see above is of one such Nano which the Mumbai Police is currently testing to find suitability as a patrol and pursuit (Yes! Pursuit!) car for the city streets. Nothing concrete has been decided yet though, and a decision will be taken only after taking into consideration the suitability of the vehicle for the job.

Do you think the Tata Nano makes a good Police vehicle?

The VW-Suzuki Alliance is in the news lately for all the wrong reasons. VW drew the first blood by publicly announcing that Suzuki needs a lesson or two in co-operation. The Suzuki boss responded with a blog post mentioning that VW is not treating Suzuki as a partner but rather as a slave. Now the acrimony has reached its peak.

VW has presented a legal notice to Suzuki because it is not happy with the fact that the Japanese Czar is procuring diesel engines (Multi-jet) from Fiat. Suzuki had partnered with Fiat to produce diesel engines in Asia in 2005. Recently, they decided that VW diesel mills are not a perfect match for their products and extended their agreement with Fiat.

The VW-Suzuki Alliance has been futile since it was first struck. There were many plans of combining Suzuki’s stronghold in the emerging markets with VW’s global reach. The partnership was supposed to extend to hybrids and diesels as well. However, no concrete outcome has been seen till date.

Later, Suzuki was given a period of several weeks to remedy the infringement. However, Suzuki opted to end its alliance with Volkswagen at an unscheduled board meeting saying that it will sell its shares in Volkswagen if the German automaker complied with the arrangement. Please note that no action has taken place yet but now it’s only a matter of time.

Now in an interesting development, Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne told Reuters that ‘Suzuki would be an interesting partner for Fiat in Asia’. This doesn’t not shock us because we have already speculated that Fiat was right partner for Suzuki and not VW.

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An interesting scoop came from Team-BHP where member JRAJE has managed to expose what many believed is Renault India’s 3rd car for the Indian market. It seems like Renault is testing the blue mini MPV Modus that has been on sale since 2004 in Europe. The car snapped up is a Grande Modus which was a facelift given to Modus in 2008.

We did a background search to understand the specifications of the vehicle and discovered that it sits on the B-Platform like the Logan, Clio and Sandero.

Renault has been talking about the V-Platform (Versatile) hatchback for the Indian market and as there is a platform mismatch IndianAutosBlog.com called up a Renault official who told us that the Modus testing around Chennai is here as part of the “validation testing in eight countries for the next generation Modus.”

The validation tests are being conducted in a contrast of countries for unknown parameters. Renault tests its products in various conditions to see if it can cope with intense dust, heat, moisture and other natural elements.

Renault’s small car will be showcased at the Auto Expo and a few months later sent into the market. It will share engines with the Nissan Micra and occupy the B+ segment that has the Hyundai i20, Honda Jazz and Volkswagen Polo. Which one is it going to be, we don’t know. What we know is it certainly isn’t the Modus.

Following the hatchback, Renault will bring down the updated Duster followed by an affordable sedan.

The Safari Merlin is gradually shedding its camouflage and piece by piece the entire puzzle is coming together. Now, a forum member from TheAutomotiveIndia.com has spotted an uncovered Merlin in a parking lot.

We are not surprised to see the Merlin because exactly the same design was previewed in a spy shot taken in November 2010.

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The ‘Sumo’ brand from Tata Motors has been in India since a very long time. The Sumo was incidentally named after Sumant Moolgaokar (late leader of the Tata Group) and has become a very household name. However, majority of the Sumos entered into the Taxi market because of their high utilitarian skills which created problems for Tata Motors and the future of the Sumo brand.

Back in 2009, with the onset of competition from XYLO the Sumo Grande, a modern version build on the Sumo platform and positioned under the Safari DICOR started suffering heavily in sales. The XYLO was a lot polished and much better product overall. We could not find one reason why the Grande suffered from the product’s perspective.

Tata Motors asked its engineers to work on the feedback from customers which led to a Grande MkII, an improved edition. However, it still carried the name ‘Sumo’ along with it which did not improve its aspirational value.

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The shy updated Toyota Fortuner has been photographed in Delhi. Along with the Innova facelift, it was shown at the Indonesian International Motor Show in July. The taped mule had the automatic transmission and we expect it to make it to the showroom model as well.

Steeroids.in claims that the same 3.0-liter diesel engine will pump out 180bhp, which we doubt will happen. Fortuner owners have not complained about the lack of power. Many of them feel the brakes can be better and that is the area Toyota has to work on if they are to revisit the car’s mechanicals.

Toyota could also bring in a 4×2 variant to make the Fortuner more affordable. The SUV now with a front-end resembling the Prado and Land Cruiser, could clock better volumes with a cheaper variant. The question is will Toyota do it as the demand for the AWD edition is already very strong.

Steeroids sneaked some interior shots which shows a touch screen DVD music system and reworked dashboard. The car also sports the same changes like a new grille, new intercooler scoop, reworked bumper and tail lamps.