Tata Motors showcased the Bolt hatchback and Zest compact sedan at the 2014 Geneva Motor Show last week. These cars were unveiled shortly before the Auto Expo 2014 and are set to go on sale in India later this year.
The president of Tata's passenger vehicles business, Mr. Ranjit Yadav, spoke to Indian Autos Blog at Geneva explaining how these vehicles will be positioned in India. Mr. Yadav said that both these cars will help Tata Motors address the personal petrol car market, a segment where the company is "under represented" according to him.
Tata has high hopes for the Bolt and Zest as they debut the Revotron series of petrol engines developed by the company. "That's a big opportunity for us", said Mr. Yadav.
Another area the company is looking to tap into is the diesel automatic segment, which is non existent in the lower segments. The Zest diesel will be introduced with an F-Tronic automated manual transmission and this should give the car an edge over the competition - like the Honda Amaze, Maruti Swift Dzire and the upcoming Hyundai Xcent - which offer an automatic gearbox only on petrol variants. "With every vehicle you’ll find some differentiation coming in", he said.
Clarifying a previous report on the European introduction of the Bolt and Zest, Mr. Yadav said that there are no plans to launch these vehicles in Europe (where Tata has three distributors located in Turkey, Spain and Italy). However, Tata will export these cars to its markets in South Africa and South East Asia.
