Mahindra Scorpio – The Masculine Car Of India

After a lot of R & D, Mahindra and Mahindra has been able to produce and launch the Mahindra Scorpio. This vehicle is equipped with many features previously not available, auto cars, in cars in India. Moreover, the vehicle is a perfect example of the ability of the designers of automobiles in India. With its robust male body and the internal combustion engine, stands out in the crowd,, auto cars, drawing admiring glances all around.The Mahindra Scorpio SUV is the first company means not, auto cars, only the local market in India, but also for the world, auto cars, market, where it was well received.

The machine fills the gap between style and adventure, luxury and ruggedness, and performance and economy. Scorpio is looking good not only with a sophisticated interior design, but also has a strong, auto cars, engine.The motor vehicle is equipped with more than 2600 SZ diesel giving 109 hp with a torque of 26 kgm. The speed of 0-60 was achieved in less than 9 seconds. The petrol version of the, auto cars, vehicle has 116 hp engine reaches 0-60 in just under 8 secondsThe Scorpio is one of the few other cars in India which have been designed and built according to international standards and quality control.

SUV is the new market propeller for auto sales in India

India is always a country which has its own pecularities. While the rest of the world is going slow on gas guzzlers and the big cars including SUVs, the market for them back home is getting attrcative with every passing day.

Inorder to cash on the building demand for SUVs in India, many global and domestic auto giants have been busy rolling out newer models or variants of their existing SUVs to pamper the senses of drivers who want to have a 4x4 driving experience.

In the brginning we had SUVs from companies like Mahindra who rolled out Scorpio, Toyota had Qualis which was phased out and Tata Motors which had Safari and Sumo. But now, there are at least 15-20 models (including imported ones) sold by a huge chunk of multinational companies in the country. Furthermore, people are snapping up these vehicles pushing the companies to either stop the bookings or launch new models.

The new innings this year was kicked off by General Motors India which launched the AT version of its Captiva SUV, followed by BMW with its X6, while others have also followed suit. While companies like Toyota are not taking additional orders for its recently-launched Fortuner SUV, Ford motor Company is offering an attractive price tag for its refreshed 2009 Endeavour SUV.

Toyota Kirloskar Motor Pvt. Ltd. (TKM) has recently announced that it had received a record 5,000 bookings of the ‘Fortuner’ in just over a month. TKM is trying to ramp up monthly production figures from 500 to 600 units to meet high customer demand and is also planning to sell 2500 units of the ‘Fortuner’ during 2009 versus the earlier announced target of 2000 units.As of now, TKM dealers have been advised to take customer orders without advance payments, while committing to a tentative date of delivery. The vehicle is powered by a 3 litre Advanced Common-Rail Diesel engine and also features fulltime four-wheel drive.

Within a fortnight of Toyota driving in its Fortuner diesel SUV in India, segment leader Ford rolled out a new version of its Endeavour, pricing the automatic variant of the model competitively at Rs. 17.9 lakh (ex-showroom Delhi). It is believed that by keeping the pricing of the automatic version of the Endeavour well below the Rs. 18.45 lakh pricing of the manual version offered by the Japanese auto titan , Ford is aiming to lure away all the Toyota customers (who are not able to buy Fortuner SUV immediately) into its own showrooms.

According to an auto industry analyst, sales have gone niche and buyers are putting their weight behind the premium SUV category which range from Rs. 13 lakh and above. SUV manufacturers have thrown in newer models; each better than the last one, got the right buyers interested, and managed to return with envious sales figures. Industry observers sees the overall market size of this category at a little over 10,000 units annually, which though small holds the potential of growing fast in the long-term with the road network getting better and more and more people driving across cities.

The resurgence of SUVs is yet another reason for the automobile companies in India to cheer about..and joining the bandwagon is now Nissan India with its X-Trail. There is promise of more action in coming days.

These cars are in great demand in India!

The passenger vehicle market may be slowing, but Maruti Suzuki's Swift Dzire sedan and Swift hatchback, Mahindra & Mahindra's utility vehicle Xylo and Hyundai's i20 have long waiting lists that have their manufacturers struggling to increase production.

Xylo, the multi-utility vehicle (base model is priced Rs 6.48 lakh (Rs 6,48,000) ex-showroom, Delhi) that was launched in January this year, has a waiting period of over two months.


Mahindra & Mahindra's xylo

Despite M&M raising prices by Rs 10,000 to Rs 12,000 about a month ago, sales have not been dented, say company executives.

The company had initially set a production target of 120 units a day; unprecedented demand has forced it to raise this to 130 to 135 units per day.

"The top-end variant is seeing the maximum surge in demand," said Pawan Goenka, president (automotive sector), M&M.


Mahindra & Mahindra's Scorpio

The Xylo has even eaten into the share of M&M's sports utility vehicle Scorpio and MUV Bolero. About a quarter of buyers who had planned to buy Scorpio or Bolero booked Xylo, said the company.

Maruti Suzuki's Dzire, the sedan version of the popular Swift hatchback that was launched in March last year, has a waiting period of three to four months for both versions (the diesel variant costs Rs 5.47 lakh (Rs 547,000) and petrol Rs 4.61 lakh (Rs 461,000), ex-showroom Delhi).


Maruti Suzuki's Dzire

"Initially, there were some constraints on availability of engines. Those are over and we are raising capacity.

But demand has also increased," said RC Bhargava, chairman of Maruti Suzuki.

He added, "It is difficult to say if we will have spare capacity to increase production further."

The company initially produced 3,000 Swift DZires a month but had to quickly scale up to 7,000 as demand grew. Bookings, however, crossed 10,000 vehicles a month.

"We have continuously scaled up production for Swift DZire but the demand is still far ahead. The car, which is promoted as a vehicle that meets all aspirational needs, will continue to see healthy growth in demand even in such a downturn," said Mayank Pareek, executive officer (sales and marketing), Maruti Suzuki.

About 65 per cent demand for Swift DZire is for the diesel variant.

Maruti's Swift hatchback has a waiting period of over three months in most markets, with the diesel variant being the most in demand.

Company executives said they were producing over 9,000 units a month but were booking about 11,000.

The petrol version costs Rs 3.99 lakh (Rs 399,000) and diesel Rs 4.67 lakh (Rs 467,000 ex-showroom, Delhi).

Hyundai had priced the i20 at a steep Rs 4.79 lakh (Rs 479,000, ex-showroom, Delhi) when it launched it in December last year and did not expect to sell more than 1,000 units a month.


Hyundai i20

Bookings however, have ranged from 2,000 to 2,200 cars every month.

"Initially we had a waiting list of 60 days but this has come down to 45 days after we increased production.

However, we had not anticipated this response for a car that was considered expensive in its category," said a company spokesperson.

Hyundai says that it has been able to increase production to around 1,500 a month -- which is around 7 per cent of monthly production -- by juggling the production of different models.

Mahindra to Launch Xylo in India

Mahindra and Mahindra announced that it is ready to launch its new MUV, Xylo, in India. It has developed its multi-ultility vehicle under the name of Ingenio. The new vehicle has been developed completely in-house after the success of its SUV, the Scorpio.

According to the press release from the company, “The much awaited Mahindra XYLO has been co-created with customers for developing a vehicle around the lifestyle and luxury aspirations of its end customer. This is further testimony to Mahindra’s customer centric vision of co-creating products and services based on the feedback and latent needs of its consumers.”

The vehicle has already undergone thorough testing in India and other countries. It is expected to be priced around Rs. 6.5 lakh to Rs. 7.5 lakh and will be pitted against Toyota Innova and upcoming Tata Indicruz Crossover.

“XYLO has been developed by a team consisting of 160 experts who have created new benchmarks in styling, technology and performance,” said Pawan Goenka, Mahindra Auto President. The car may be launched by end of December 2008.

Mahindra launches micro-hybrid technology equipped cars

Indian auto major Mahindra and Mahindra Tuesday unveiled new micro-hybrid equipped variants of its Bolero and Scorpio line-up.Micro-hybrid is a stop/start technology, which enables the car’s engine automatically switch off when the vehicle comes to a complete halt in the neutral mode. The engine restarts when the driver steps on the clutch to shift the gear.

The technology is aimed towards fuel savings at stoppages at intersections and traffic jams.

Mahindra is currently offering the technology in Scorpio’s Bharat Stage 2 compliant M2DI variant and Bolero’s SLX version.



The price difference between vehicles equipped with micro-hybrid technology and the regular vehicles is between $85 and $89.

The system is based on the principle of not burning fuel when it is not required. It detects moments, during the drive, when the vehicle is idle and stops the engine. This conserves fuel, and also leads to low emissions.

Mahindra, which has dubbed the technology as FuelSmart, developed it in collaboration with German automotive component maker Bosch.

“This is a technological innovation, which we have developed with support from Bosch. This will give an average fuel saving of about five percent from the normal vehicles,” Mahindra president (auto motive sector) Pawan Goenka said.



The company is also considering to use the technology in its yet-to-be launched Ingenio sports utility vehicle, he said.

Goenka did not give a specific figure on the sales target for vehicles equipped with the technology.

He said the technology will initially be offered in the domestic market, adding: “We may look at similar markets like Southeast Asia and Nepal in future but our present focus will be on the domestic market.”

Automatic cars find many new women buyers The auto industry has some new positioning working out to its advantage. Automatic transmission cars are se

The auto industry has some new positioning working out to its advantage. Automatic transmission cars are seeing brisk sales, thanks to the growing number of female customers who have developed a penchant for such cars. It is widely believed that automatic transmission variants of a number of models are finding a lot of woman takers as it enhances the comfort to drive such cars.

A number of companies that have lined up new automatic transmission-enabled models like Hyundai's i20, GM's Captiva (AT version), Fiat's Linea et al. Moreover, the recently launched models like Honda City, Mitsubishi Outlander, Mahindra Scorpio etc are already equipped with the aforesaid feature. Unlike before, carmakers are offering new-age five to six speed automatic transmission systems which are offering better fuel-efficiency along with improved pick up and performance.

One of the top-selling cars of such variants is the premium hatchback car-i10, which is selling over 1,600 automatic transmission variants per month, which is more than the company's initial estimates.

It was reported earlier that Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. (M&M), on 22nd September'08, has launched the Scorpio Automatic in Pune and Bangalore, which incorporates a fully automatic 6-speed gearbox and the powerful 2.2 litre mHawk engine. Scorpio is the first Indian brand and the first SUV in its class to offer a 6-speed fully automatic transmission.

According to a senior representative of Hyundai Motor India Limited, the sale of automatic variants of i10 have exceeded the company's expectations. He added that there has been an overwhelming response from woman drivers and the growing congestion in the urban centres is pushing up demand. He also indicated that the company will also roll out the automatic transmission variant in its Verna sedan too and would also bring a variant for the physically challenged.

Commenting on the new trend, one of the top honchos of Honda Siel Cars India (HSCI) has stated that the company sells the automatic transmission variants for most of its models like Civic, Accord, City, CRV. He added that female buyers are inclined towards high-end features and automatic transmission is one of them.

According to a senior official of GM India, the Captiva model has been selling like hot cakes. Buoyed by the burgeoning demand, the company has decided to launch the automatic variant soon (with a four-wheel drive), that will cost around Rs. 20 lakh.

Ann Street Auto Sales to sell India's Mahindra diesel vehicles

Most shoppers go to Ann Street Auto Sales searching for late-model used cars. But by next spring, the 50-year-old dealership at 1970 Alpine Ave. NW turns a corner, becoming the region's first new-car source for three diesel-powered vehicles from India.



Mahindra & Mahindra, better known among agricultural circles for its line of farm tractors, is on the brink of selling its Scorpio seven-passenger SUV and two models of utilitarian pickups as early as March, said David Brock, the dealer's general manager. He's heading the expansion into new car sales at Ann Street Auto, and saw the Mahindra line in Atlanta last fall.





"Their main SUV, the Scorpio, is a seven-passenger comparable to the Explorer, or a little bigger," Brock said. "They'll all come with direct-injection diesels, so they're very, very clean for the environment, and a lot higher on gas mileage." How high? In the 32 to 35 mpg range, Brock said. "It's almost double anything out there right now," he said. Mahindra's U.S. distributor, Global Vehicles, is based in Alpharetta, Ga.

But the India automaker already plans to bring pickup assembly to an Ohio plant as soon as next year, Brock said. He expects the Scorpio to sell in the $24,000 range, with the two yet-unnamed trucks in the $20,000 range. The biggest market may be in the farm community, where Mahindra tractors are the No. 3 seller in the U.S. Brock initially investigated a Romanian automaker, but that deal fell through. He is less enthused about the prospect of autos from China.

"I don't think they'll be here for a while," Brock said. "There's a lot of cars out there that are a lot cheaper in other nations. But by the time you add the expense of making them work in the U.S. market -- anti-rollover, air bags, ABS brakes -- I just don't see it happening down the road."



Newcomers to the U.S. car market face fierce odds, especially when they try to set up a dealership network. That's the biggest challenge for Chenfang, Mahindra or any other automaker not yet stateside, auto analyst Grand Rapids Erich Merkle said.

Although a car from China could sell for less than $10,000 here, Merkle said, Toyota Motor Co. already has the small Yaris in place to compete with it. The Yaris starts at $12,000, but it has a big advantage over Chenfang: a big dealer network. "Buyers know Toyota is going to be here. They brought the Yaris over here as a defensive move against any Chinese automaker coming into the market," Merkle said.

The Mahindra SUV and basic pickups might appeal to a niche crowd, Merkle said.



"The vehicles are a little on the crude side; they don't have all the comfort and convenience features," said Merkle, a Crowe Chizek analyst.

"They look more like a piece of farm equipment than anything else." The tractor business is the key to the new line's success, Brock said. Mahindra already has two tractor plants in the U.S. and has been in the market for 10 years. "I really believe they're growing at the grassroots," he said.

As for reliability, Brock said, he realized Kia and Hyundai first imported lower-quality cars "until they got their act together." But Mahindra won't go that route. "They're not going to bring over an inferior product," Brock said.