The French Giants, Renault is out with new Scala to fight Nissan Sunny

The Car Industry must be facing a slow down but the French Auto giants don’t show any signs of retreat from the heated market of India. Renault has launched its new sedan Scala in India recently at Delhi. Four variations of Scala are available, RXE, RXL as petrol variants and RXL and RXZ as diesel ones. 

The new sedan model is positioned between Renault Fluence and Renault Pulse. It is being called twin of Nissan’s Sunny due to their similarities (as they share same manufacturing unit, located close to Chennai in Tamil Nadu). It is extremely well designed with better look and feel than Sunny.

The Specifications of the car has been a very competitive with other brands, the exterior is changed to give a distinguished look from Sunny. With mileage of 21.64 kmpl in diesel and 16.95 kmpl in petrol, car touches 100 kmph in 13 seconds in petrol and in 15 seconds in diesel. Shipped with ABS and airbags for safety, ample legroom due to longer wheelbase, better CVT than rivals, Scala will prove a tough competition. It competes with Nissan’s Sunny, Volkswagen’s Vento, Honda City, Skoda Rapid, Hyundai Verna and few others.

Coming to competitors, on one end, Toyota Etios gives better mileage, looks superior; Hyundai Verna gives more options (5 of diesel and 5 of petrol). On other hand, Scala beats Vento in mileage and pricing, whereas it has similar pricing but better mileage compared to Skoda.

As far the petrol price hike is concerned, majority of experts are of opinion that it will not have major impact on car sales. It wasn’t long back when auto-industry advocated hike in diesel price and lobbied against a feared tax on diesel vehicles. The Sales of the diesel variants has turned into betting ground for car rookies as the price rise of diesel along with the other competition seems dicey. So, majority of auto sector welcomes decision, while a small section maintains that the move was ill timed as the festive season is coming up and car sales are supposed to go up and some price sensitive customers might have second thoughts.

Anyhow, path for Scala’s ride in market is a little challenging but optimistic for the French too.

 

Sources: cardekho.com, indiandriver.com, dnaindia.com, business-standard.com, carmanation.wordpress.com

Pimp My Ride: Indian Style – Are Indian Car lovers ready for something of this sort?

“We heard you like books, so we put a library in your car, so you can read books while you drive”.

If you are MTV’s Pimp My Ride fan, you already know what I am talking about. It’s my take on the memes that gained popularity after Xzibit’s similar sentences on the closure of Pimp My Ride episodes. This tingling sensation of getting your car dressed by a celebrity, Xzibit was indeed a hit in 2009 and a fad for a regular teenage American Youth.

If you don’t know what I mean, I am talking one of MTV’s most popular shows, ‘Pimp My Ride’, which used to customize a car for someone absolutely free. The format goes like this: A car lover shows off his car and persuades the Pimp My Ride team to transform his/her car, the presenter or host (usually Xzibit) goes to the car owner’s house, has a look at the car, takes it to custom body shop, where the team generally rebuilds the interiors and exteriors from scratch; including engine in some cases.

 But how much do we Indians love our car? Do we care enough to customize our car to match our personality? And if we intend to, do we have any options around to make this dream come true?

 

 

My neighbor who is in his late twenties bought a car a few years ago and fell in love with it. He would say, “Some have cars, some have girlfriends and some have girlfriend because they have cars”. The way he took special efforts to polish dirt off of his car and as the seats were covered with plastic that they came with for months after the purchase, I concluded his car had taken the place of his girlfriend.

 Anyways, two days ago, standing in the window, I saw him driving. The car didn’t look like what it was years ago. As he drove, front left tire got in the pothole (they have taken over the city roads, as usual); the car struggled to get the part out, shook hard, and gave up. Finally, owner got down and asked for manual help. By this time, I was counting dents, making out shapes of scratches, looking at the brown under red paint peeking through. And, I declare, his car needed some serious pimping.

What I intend to imply by this narration is, the excitement that you feel for your new car, wears out with time and your car merely becomes just a mean to get you from one place to another, not something you would like to show off or spend time in.

If we had an Indian version of Pimp My Ride, I think it would definitely encourage people customize and maintain their ride. If you own a car, you know that buying a car is not difficult, with banks literally putting money in your hands. What you’ll find tricky is maintenance. It is expensive, with many unorganized, unrecognized service brands, and with increase in car sales, service sector is in demand. 

 On the show: Pimp My Ride, customizing a ride involved many changes made to car within 12 days, from new paint to accessories, such as race car seats, tires and internal electronics. In some cases, dryer (for a surfer dude), fish tanks and electronic fireplaces were installed as per owner’s need.

 Primarily speaking, Indian Audience would have concentrated more on Mileage and the Averages their Car has to offer and get a replacement of a new engine by an Indian Celebrity for Free on the show, which sounds like a bonus deal for Indian mentality but our survey showed that Indian’s, just like the American audience, have a liking for flames design pattern on their front bonnet along with Wings and nitro-oxide cylinder at the rear part of their cars. An Indian version not only will be popular, it may give a perspective to car-owners on how they can make their ride a cool place to hang out at.

 

(ref: wikepedia, mtv.com)