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