Maruti puts on hold Nano competitor plans for now
Maruti Suzuki — the largest car maker in India had earlier revealed plans to release a small car that would compete with the Nano. The plan was to release a car equipped with a 660cc ‘K’ engine though that seems to have been put at the back burner citing high cost. However, the car would still be shown at the upcoming Delhi Auto Expo.
Mr. RC Bhargava, the chairman of Maruti Suzuki said, “We want to ask customers what they would ideally want to pay for these cars. Normally, Indian market works on principle that smaller the engine, smaller the price. These cars are not like the Nano, but are much more sophisticated with a technology level much higher than that, featuring aluminium engines.”
Shinzo Nakanishi, the CEO and the managing director of the firm stated the car is all set to go on sale in Japan with the tax incentives at about one million yen i.e., Rs 6,00,000. He also admitted that the two models of k series have been brought to India just as showpieces. They do not intend to sell them just yet.
Bhargava also said that the strategy that the Indian market uses is that smaller the engine, smaller the price i.e. the cost price varies directly with the size of the engine. These cars are a result of more sophisticated and complicated technologies than Nano and those featuring aluminum engines. In fact we would like to like to know how much would the customers actually pay for these cars. In New Delhi, the ex-showroom price of the Nano starts at Rs 1,36,000 while Maruti’s own entry level car, Maruti 800 costs Rs 1,98,000.
Yaresh Kothari boasted that they prefer not considering Nano as one of its competitors. Even if they consider some other car as their competitor they would accept Nano. He also claimed that even the Tata’s are not happy with their own Nano.
The Tata’s had set up their targets to sell 25,000 units a month. On the contrary they hardly manage to sell 6,000 units monthly. Where as the Maruti 800 despite being removed from the top 13 Indian cities sell about 2,500 units monthly.
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