Automotive News

GM India announced last week that they have slashed the prices for their new offering in the small car market. The Chevy Spark has been priced now at Rs. 2.66 lakh for the base model.

If you consider the highest model in the car, there is a price cut of over 55,000 rupees.

“The special price is the result of improved localisation of the Spark coming out of operational efficiencies due to increase in production volume,” said Ankush Arora whos is the Vice president for Marketing India.

The Spark model from General Motors has sold over 2 million units in over 100 countries. The car also won the ‘Best Value 2008′ award for cars this year.

This may be old news but many people still are not aware of this, which is the reason we are running a post on this. The word from the company after launching the Hyundai i10 is that they have already begun plans on coming out with a follow up to the Hyundai small car.

The Hyundai i20 will be a very similar version and will almost resemble the i10 in looks. The only difference is that the Hyundai i20 will run on diesel and not petrol. This will appeal to the customers who have a greater running and want to cut their fuel costs, particularly with rising oil prices.

This year is going to be all about the lower running cost cars with the lauch of the Santro LPG and Accent LPG and CNG versions - which are all due to be launched before December 2008.

The Maruti Suzuki Swift DZiRE is all set to be launched by the end of this month. This has come in a late announcement yesterday by India’s largest car manufacturer , Maruti Suzuki. They have said that they plan to launch the eagerly aniticipated and improved swift sedan, - Swift ‘DZire’ this month.

The company are focussed on phasing out the old Maruti Esteem and replace it with a re-modelled version of the already hit - Maruti Swift.

The car will be priced at around 5 to 6 lac, but this has not been confirmed by the company. Only estimates i add again. The Swift DZire will have a features that have never been offered in India by any low priced sedans..

A few of these features include -

1. Fully integrated stereo on with steering mounted audio controls.

2. Automatic climate control system,

3. Dual front airbags

4. ABS

Skoda launched the new Skoda Fabia for the Indian market at the Auto Expo in Delhi day before. The car is due to be launched in the next week before the month end. The price is said to be around 4.99 lakhs to 7.6 lakhs which is quite a big range for a small car.

But to say the least, this is no ordinary small car. The luxury of the Skoda is comparable to the top end of any car and we are sure to get a good bang for the buck on this beauty.

The Fabia will be launched with a 1.4 litre petrol and diesel engine at first. Later on in the year the company plans on going in for the 1.2 litre engines. The car will be in the showrooms in 5-6 appealing colors like - Corrida Red, Satin Grey, Brilliant Silver, Magic Black, Candy White and Cappuccino Beige.

TATA has finally unvielled the 1 lakh car at the dealer price level. This works out to about USD 2500. The end customer will be able to buy it for about 20,000 more, so between 1.2 to 1.3 lakh ruppees.

The car itself looks pretty neat and sweet. It measures 3.1 metres in length and 1.6 metres in height. The NANO is about 1.5 metres in width.

The engine of the car is a 623 cc multi point fuel injection petrol eng. The car comes with tubeless tyres which is a good poisitive surprise.

The TATA nano will have a huge advantage over other four wheelers in terms of fuel economy. The reported fuel economy the car will give is about 20 kms/ litre. Also the car is EURO 4 compliant which is great.