Skoda Fabia sedan based Rapid espied in Pune

Skoda Rapid was espied by Overdrive being tested on the periphery of Pune city. Still under wraps and coded VW SK251, the car is expected to be launched at the Delhi Auto Expo 2012 and the company expects orders to flow in by March next year.

No details of pricing were as yet revealed by the company and one expects Skoda to keep pricing of the Rapid lower than the Vento which will have more features than the Rapid. However the spy pictures give us some details of the Rapid which has contoured rear view mirrors while the side and body of the car resembles the Vento to a large extent.

The Rapid is also expected to have a1.6 liter petrol and diesel engine, but no real statistics were available as to torque and power. Skoda is also sure that they will be exporting Rapid from India thus ensuring that it becomes a global car in 2012.

Hindustan Motors Ambassador to hit in newest avatar at the Auto Show Delhi

Hindustan Motors (HM), the makers of the iconic Indian car, Ambassador may be showcasing it in its newest form at the India Auto Expo to be held next year. The car that draws its lineage from Morris Oxford series II (Landmaster) and series III (Ambassador) is set to undergo one of the most daring changes ever.

As Motoism reported earlier the Hindustan Motors have called in styling experts from Europe to make the changes to the fading away brand, now used mostly by Taxis and the Government Babus. Hindustan Motors has also made it clear that they will continue to manufacture the present day version for the taxi segment side by side of the newer one.

The new version will be ready on paper atleast by the year-end  and post finalization in May, commercial production will commence in July 2012. Bearing in mind the timing of finalization to the car, the Auto Expo 2012 will be a really good platform to unveil the car, which according to HM will have a retro yet sporty design and will be engineered with cutting edge technology to provide the values that it has so long preached - comfort and value for money.

Although the platform on which the car is based and the dimensions will remain the same the exteriors of the car will be changed dramatically, as confirmed by the officials. Other changes will include BS-IV compliance and atleast four engine options to choose from.

Delhi Auto Expo

Auto Expo 2012 may have a second venue within the capital region because the entire space at Pragati Maidan has been sold and there is a long queue of prospective participants outside.

"We are contemplating a second location to accommodate the entire auto industry in an integrated manner," said Vishnu Mathur who heads the country's auto industry body. The Indian Auto Expo has become a priority destination for most automakers over the years when the country emerged the second fastest-growing car market and a global leader in truck and bus sales. But space is scarce.

The entire exhibition space at Pragati Maidan, which hosted all the 10 previous motor shows here, was sold in less than a week. And many multinationals are yet to ensure their participation in the world's largest motor show in attracting visitors. The venue has 55,000 square metre space, which is just about half of total demand, according to Mathur, director general of the Society of Indian Automobile Industry.

The society jointly organises the show with industry body CII and auto component body ACMA. A person close to the organisers said Expo Mart at Noida could be the second venue that will accommodate component makers and ancillaries units. Space crunch had forced some big companies including Ford India to miss the previous auto show in 2010. There were several disruptions including cancellation of promotional events.

The problem will be worse next year if Pragati Maidan remains the only venue, because there are more participants and there may be more visitors than last year's two million. There will also be 35 vehicle launches, 10 more than last time.

Ambassador's new venture

Hindustan Motors’ iconic car is set to get a radical makeover, but is it too late in the day?

The oldest face of Indian automobiles is set to get a radical makeover with a new design and styling. But not many are convinced whether nostalgia and the latest move by Hindustan Motors (HM) would be enough to ensure a smooth ride for the Ambassador (Amby) in future.

Many say that the Amby is to Indians what the iconic Volkswagen Beetle is to Germans. But the similarity ends there. While Europe’s largest car manufacturer has painstakingly resurrected the original ‘People’s Car’, making it one of the most popular small cars ever made, the Amby has had a neglected past.

The biggest problem is while the Indian auto market has changed completely, HM has remained in the past for far too long, giving almost a free run to newer models from nimble-footed competitors.

India’s top automobile designer Dilip Chhabria says, “It’s an uphill ride. Apart from some very timid efforts, they haven’t done anything to it for decades. Being an icon is what has powered Amby sales since 1950’s. I believe the company should treat it the way Porsche has treated the 911, and BMW has treated the Mini.”

The five-seater Ambassador has so far largely retained its first generation styling borrowed from Morris Oxford III, even 50 years after Morris Motor Company, the UK-based auto firm discontinued the model. Dated looks, a fuel guzzling engine and raging competition pushed the Ambassador down the popularity charts as it now records less than 400 units a month in sales, with more than 50 per cent of it coming from government and institutional demand.

But HM wants to change all that and has kickstarted a development programme for a completely new Amby, sporting a new design and styling – both exterior as well as interior..

HM says the all-new range, which will debut in the second half of next year and will cost more than the present day model, shows the company’s commitment to cater to varied aspirations of new-age customers.

HM Managing Director Manoj Jha says the company is working on several variants of the Ambassador. The one with micro changes will debut soon and the one with macro changes will be introduced later.

The company, according to sources, is also planning to have a shorter version of the car, which would qualify it for the excise benefit given to compact cars having length of less than four meters. This new small car may get launched earlier than the new Ambassador.

HM is expanding its research and development wing rapidly and carrying out most the work for the new Amby in-house. Some of the complicated process such as design and styling has been outsourced to a Pune-based design firm Onio.

Design is one area which, experts believe, would require huge attention as it is crucial for engineers to carry forward the basic styling of the Amby, which has remained the same for the last 40 years, while keeping the essential and practical style elements intact.

Chhabria adds, “The success of the new Amby depends on how well the company treats it. But I believe HM lacks the creative intensity to make significant changes. It has a fabulous legacy, and if do it right, it could have a great upside.”

HM is bending backwards to remove the drawbacks of the current generation model which lies in its noisy engines. The company says it will strap the new model with a new engine that is more powerful and efficient.

“There will be different types of engines for different variants of the Ambassador. Some of these will be produced in-house . HM is also keen on establishing a partnership with a European company for technology transfer”, says a senior company executive.

While some new variants will be targeted at the mass segment with an affordable price tag, a more ‘refined’ segment of buyers will get a more luxurious Amby with added features.

The company thus expects to more than quadruple its monthly sale of the car to about 2,000 units.

HM is also keen on reducing the share of government and institutional sales and promote the Amby among individual customers. The company is doubling its dealer network to 140 to enhance the retail count.

A Chennai-based auto analyst says, “It would not be easy for the company to shed its present image. But on the upside, even today, people talk about the tank-like build of the Amby. The all-new version is hopefully built keeping in mind the basic essence of the car”.

Domestic-Foreign division in Siam

The Indian auto industry is divided with deep cracks appearing between the homegrown and foreign carmakers. Over the last few months these differences have only intensified. At the heart of the controversy is the continued demand from the players such as Mahindra & Mahindra, Tata Motors and Maruti Suzuki for high tariff on imports to protect their investments in the country.

This was evident in the way industry lobby group Siam, which is headed by M&M president Pawan Goenka, responded to the moves to lower tariffs in the proposed trade agreement between India and the European Union.

While Goenka struck a protectionist move and opposed the move which would have lowered the duty on imported cars, foreign makers supported duty reduction. Senior officials from Audi, BMW and Mercedes openly took a line different to that of Siam, arguing that the domestic industry needs to shed protection if it wants to be globally competitive.

Then, Siam decided to ignore the new definition of completely build and completely knocked down cars, proposed in the Budget, along with changes in the duty structure. The government decided to fix customs duty on CKD-assembled cars at 30% against 10% before the Budget. On February 28, Siam feigned complete ignorance saying it was yet to study the proposal. Government officials, however, say that the revenue department had consulted the auto industry last June.

The situation was much the same last week, when the Delhi government decided to slap additional levy on diesel vehicles. Siam issued a statement criticizing the move. While Siam officials said that automakers are putting up a unified front, industry insiders said in private, "It is a divided house at Siam."

Siam was again criticized by many of its constituents for the "shoddy manner" (as many described it) in which it organized the Delhi Auto Expo, for which it has industry body CII and component makers body ACMA as joint organizers. Siam was accused by many of its constituents of mismanagement, poor organization and lack of coordination.

Companies said their CEOs and MDs had to slug it out in long queues as there was no proper arrangement for them to enter the venue. "And this despite our paying such exorbitant fee to the organizers. We had to ask our senior officials, many of whom were from global headquarters, to avoid visiting the expo due to such shortcomings," an official of a German company said. "It has been an agonizing experience for us to participate at the Delhi Auto Expo," a senior official with a Japanese car company said, on condition of anonymity as nobody wanted to anger Siam by airing grievances in public.

Many of the foreign constituents of Siam are also not satisfied that the auto body has not raised crucial issues like an official recall policy for Indian automakers.

However, Siam does not agree. "Siam works on the basis of consensus. In order to generate a consensus, often the individual interests have to be viewed from the perspective of overall industry interest. In any such activity, the decisions are based on the highest common factor rather than the least common denominator," said Sugato Sen, a senior director. He said Siam had pushed for lower duty on CKD that saw it getting reduced from 60% to 30%.

On criticism of the auto expo, he said, "We are all aware of the shortcomings of the venue at which this show is held. The organizers have to bear with the constraints of the venue which can sometimes be overbearing for the organizers, exhibitors as well as the visitors."

World Famous Auto Shows

The Auto Expo has been the glittering showcase of the Indian automobile and auto-component industry for the last 18 years. Each Auto Expo has revealed to the world, the rapid developments in the industry and has been the launching-pad for many new vehicles as well as new technology components.

The neat layouts of the show provides ample opportunity to the consumers of vehicles to see the latest offerings in the market as well as to the business visitor to carry out networking in a highly enabled environment. The Auto Expo is therefore not only a networking ground, but also a place to find business partners and strategic alliances for manufacturing, outsourcing, sub-contracting, design and development as well as direct marketing.

Auto Expo is renowned not only for the hardware exhibition but also for the opportunity to interact, learn and share know-how with the brains behind them. The conferences and seminars draw the best industrialists, technocrats and policy makers of the auto industry from around the globe. A number of International Conferences are planned during Auto Expo 2006.

The AutoExpo is organized by the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers Auto Component Manufacturers' Association and the Confederation of Indian Industry. The Expo drew more than a thousand participants from automakers to suppliers to parts makers, with China alone setting up sixty booths. Organizers expect financial transactions to reach over a $100 million.

"The response is enormous and we expect that business deals, valued around $55 million in the 2004 edition, will cross $100 million (this year),'' stated a senior Confederation official.

Organised jointly by Automotive Component Manufacturers Association of India (ACMA), Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM), the Auto Expo is slated to be bigger than ever before.

The Indian Auto Industry has come of age. The presence of leading global auto manufacturers; consistent growth in annual turnover and significant contribution to the Government through direct and indirect taxes have made the Indian auto industry, today a major driver of economic growth in India. Asia's Largest Automotive Show, Auto Expo has played a major role in the whole process. Over the years Auto Expo has proved to be a very effective event for facilitating the coming together of auto majors from around the world in a focussed fashion, under one roof.

Over the years Auto Expo has proved to be a very effective event for facilitating the coming together of auto majors from around the world in a focussed fashion, under one roof.

Auto Expo plays a crucial role for India because the Auto Industry in India has come of age and the presence of leading global auto manufacturers; consistent growth in annual turnover and significant contribution to the Government through direct and indirect taxes have made the Indian auto industry, today a major driver of economic growth in India.

India is becoming more and more important for the international automotive industry. Germany has long standing activities in India. OEMs have built up capacities and are building up new ones. German suppliers already operate with more than 50 production sites.

At the Auto Expo, India’s largest and most important event for automobiles and automotive, major automobile manufacturers throughout the world will be presenting new models.

New Delhi auto expo 2010 was expected as the largest in the world

The New York Auto show in April, with 1.2 million visitors, came the closest to matching this record. The third most frequented automobile extravaganza is the Shanghai Auto Show with 600,000 visitors.

In 2009, 30 large auto shows were held around the world. Most of these were in the US, Europe and China. None matched the expected visitors for the 2010 Auto Expo.

“The 2010 Auto Expo was bigger, brighter and better than the previous shows. The growing number of visitors indicates the rising importance of India as a key automobile destination,” says Pawan Goenka, president of the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (Siam) and President, Mahindra & Mahindra.

The Auto Expo is jointly organised by CII, Siam and the Automotive Component Manufacturers Association of India.

“The New Delhi Auto Expo is held only for seven days, while the New York Auto Show is open for 10 days and the Shanghai Auto Show is spread over nine days. The New York Auto Expo attracts a large crowd because the show venue is located in the heart of New York City’s 34th and 39th Street intersections, which are busy locations. Besides, the show is also promoted as a significant tourist attraction, while Delhi Auto Expo’s Pragati Maidan does not enjoy this benefit,” says one industry executive.

There are three reasons for the big draw. For one, India is a fast-growing market for cars and two-wheelers. Compared with China’s 27 cars per 1,000 citizens, India has only seven car owners per 1,000 citizens. “Delhi’s Auto Expo event is the bellwether for the automobile industry. Both domestic and global companies can showcase products to the largest potential audience,” says Venu Srinivasan, President of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and CMD of TVS Motor.

Two, the 2010 edition holds immense significance for global vehicle manufacturers, since India and China were the fastest to recover from the financial crisis that swept the world last year. Car sales in the domestic market from April-November this year grew 21 per cent, while sales of medium and large trucks and buses in the same period dipped by barely 2.4 per cent. Much of the key markets in the US and Europe are still in the negative and yet to witness a recovery.

Three, global car and truck majors who skipped this year’s key events like the Tokyo Motor Show are lining up to showcase their products at the capital’s Auto Expo. “There could be multiple reasons as to why companies avoided participating in the global auto shows. One reason could be cost-cutting. For many of these global vehicle manufacturers, India is yet a virgin market and showcasing a concept model gives tremendous mileage. Component manufacturers benefit greatly from events like these,” says Mohit Arora, senior director, Singapore based JD Power & Associates.