NEW DELHI: Honda India is charting out plans to turn around its operations in India by driving in three new models, including a compact SUV.

Faced with high inventory, declining volumes and sudden shift in buyer demand from diesel to petrol variants, Honda India plans to launch hybrid version of the Accord sedan and the global Civic mid-size to revive its fortunes in on one of the fastest growing auto markets of the world.

Yoichiro Ueno, the newly-appointed president and CEO of Honda Cars India, said the mini-SUV segment looks promising. "The growth in the category is significant, and we believe that it will continue. Honda is now considering how to capture the SUV segment," he told TOI.

On slide in sales, he said the company has managed to control some of the issues plaguing the business in India. "When I took charge, we had high inventories... The January-March quarter had been below expectations," Ueno said.

​ Sudden shift in buyer demand from diesel to petrol variants has also upset the company's strategy. A poor faring by some of the models also made matters difficult, particularly the bad response to Mobilio MPV that was launched in July 2014.

"When I met the dealers, they were suffering from financial situations. They wanted to liquidate inventories," Ueno said. The dealers had been carrying inventory of about 2-2.5 months against healthy levels of three weeks to one month. The company has since corrected the situation by reducing deliveries to dealerships, which perhaps was the reason behind the continued fall in sales.

"There had been a quick shift from diesel to petrol. May be, we had too much focus on diesel. The alignment of production was too late as we thought that the shift towards petrol was temporary," the Honda MD said. Ueno said the situation had been relatively better in the retail market.

Speaking about the problems with the Mobilio, which failed to enthuse buyers, Ueno said the product did not match up to what the market wanted. "We had thought that there would be a strong demand for three-row seating in the private-customer segment... But the customers did not see the benefit. Also, the price was a bit higher than customer expectations."

Source : Honda India bets on 3 new models for turnaround

BANGALORE: Indian automobile manufacturer Tata Motors has successfully delivered first 50 cars to drivers on the Uber platform in Bangalore, on Monday. With an aim to foster micro-entrepreneurship in Bangalore , the initiative offers driver partners on the Uber platform a comprehensive vehicle purchase and ownership solution with a down payment of Rs 30,000 and a speedy funding within seven to ten days.  

Nakul Gupta, Regional Manager, PVBU, Tata Motors said, "We are delighted to have partnered with Uber to deliver seamless solutions for drivers in Bangalore. Reiterating our commitment to our partnership, this initiative will help solve the problems faced by drivers at the time of buying a car, by removing hurdles and making the buying process as smooth and quick as possible." 

The 'Tata Offer' entails the purchase of fuel-efficient cars like Indica and Indigo, from Tata Motors using flexible financing solutions from Tata Capital Financial Services and Tata Motors Finance, for drivers. Tata Motors has supplied 31 Indicas and 25 Indigos to the driver partners with a hope to enable more than 20,000 drivers on the Uber platform. Customers will also receive free accessories, GPS, external warranty and insurance in this offer.

Tata Motors has enhanced its service initiatives in Karnataka and with increased focus on service infrastructure, service quality and service offerings at workshops, the Company has jumped to No 2 position in the Customer Service Index, 2015 in Bangalore with a score of 940 points. Tata Motors will continue to offer industry leading service offerings and will also support Driver partners of Uber with best-in-class after-sales-service across 11 service workshops in Bangalore.

Source : Tata Motors Delivers 50 Cars to Uber Drivers In Bengaluru

Mahindra TUV300, the popular subcompact SUV from the home-grown utility vehicle manufacturer will now be available in a new Bronze Green colour option. Launched to celebrate our 70th Independence Day, the new colour scheme will be available across variants in made-to-order basis.

If you remember, when Mahindra launched the sub-4 metre SUV last year in September, the carmaker largely emphasised on the TUV300's battle tank inspired design concept. It was a key selling point for Mahindra and this new colour option goes really well with that theme. In fact, the new Bronze Green colour scheme to an extent even matches the military green colour used by the Indian Army.

During the time of its launch, Mahindra TV300 was available in a similar green colour option, christened Combat Green, which was also available on the made-to-order basis. These special colours are available as an optional extra from Mahindra's in-house customisation division. Now the carmaker hasn't mentioned anything about the additional premium this special colour option will command but it might vary depending on the dealerships.

Mahindra TUV300 - Verve Blue

Apart from this new special colour, the Mahindra TUV300 continues to come in the standard colour scheme as well, which includes - Dynamo Red, Bold Black, Molten Orange, Majestic Silver, Verve Blue, and Glacier White. In terms of features, nothing has changed as the car continues to come with offerings like - driver infotainment system, piano black console, volume and telephony controls on the steering wheel and more. The cabin also remains unchanged and gets the same standard Beige-Brown dual tone colour scheme.

Under the hood, Mahindra offers the TUV300 with two engine option - mHawk80 and mHawk100. Both the versions use the same 1.5-litre motor but in different states of tune. The mHawk80 churns out 84bhp in the manual variants and 81bhp in the AMT variant with the peak torque remaining the same at 230Nm. As for the more powerful mHawk100, it churns out a satisfying 100bhp and develops a peak torque of 240Nm, while mated to either a 5-speed manual or a 5-speed AMT gearbox.

DELHI: Home to half of the  world's 20 most polluted cities India is working to introduce real driving emission (RDE) tests for a more accurate emission profile of new vehicles under on-road conditions. New models of vehicles currently go through mandatory laboratory tests, but global analysis has shown that vehicles produced inline with existing standards generate substantially higher emissions on-road than in laboratory conditions, particularly in case of emissions of diesel vehicles.  Real driving emission tests, which will make Indian emission inspection standards among the most stringent in the world, are intended to keep in check vehicular  pollution levels and plug gaps to prevent defaults as seen in the diesel gate scandal involving German automajor Volkswagen.  "In  Europe, real driving tests are being brought in to evaluate NOX emissions. In India, particulate matter emissions are more of a concern. While details are being worked out regarding parameters of these inspections, RDE will come into force from 2020 for purposes of data collection, and permissible limits to determine emission performance of vehicles will become applicable 2024 onwards."  Procedure for off-cycle emissions are being worked out by the ministry of road transport; highways (MoRTH) and the ministry of heavy industries. A senior executive from a leading Japanese auto maker confirmed the development.  To prevent manipulations, while a vehicle is being driven on-road, new rules will specify in measurable parameters the characteristics of the test trips which would include  speed range, elevation gain among other factors. Guidelines will also be laid down to improve supervision of emission control strategy of vehicles to prevent use of defeat devices as seen in case of the diesel-gate scandal involving Volkswagen. The car maker last year admitted to the fitment of 11 million diesel engines worldwide with software which helped in manipulating emission tests.  The roads ministry is also framing norms for in-compliance tests for in-use vehicles of all makes and engine types to further check vulnerability of the country to Volkswagen-like frauds. Currently, India defines regulatory standards (Bharat Stage emission rules) for new vehicles and not in-use ones.  We recommend this video by Venturist VENTURIST MEDIA INC. In-service compliance tests will be conducted randomly on vehicles on the roads to see if they are conforming to Bharat Stage emission standards 2020 onwards.  "Variations are expected in emission levels of vehicles tested from factory floor and those tested onroad. There are no clear norms defining permissible on-road emission levels, which would allow us to know if these variations are nominal or of alarming proportions.  We are working on refining this architecture," said a senior government official.  There can be penalties involved if significant variations are found after factoringin at what stage of its lifecycle the vehicle is and to what extent it has been maintained.  Volkswagen had initiated a recall of 3.23 lakh vehicles in India in December last year after a government-ordered probe showed 5-6 times more emissions from some of the group's diesel-run vehicles, compared with what the company had reported based on trials carried out in laboratory conditions. The company had, however, at the time said its vehicles conformed to BS standards.  Real driving emission tests will become applicable to new models in Europe from September 2017, and for new vehicles from September 2019. Conformity factor of up to 2.1 will be allowed for exceeding NOx emissions limit in the continent.

With almost all luxury carmakers present in India, the absence of Lexus has been a talking point for a while now. With numerous rumours over the years, nothing turned into reality but all of that is set to change as Toyota has reportedly decided to launch its luxury brand Lexus in India, sometime in early 2017. Along with a reported entry of Lexus in India, we also have an official statement from Toyota Kirloskar Motor, which doesn't accept but doesn't deny the arrival of Lexus either. A company sp

okesperson said, "It is true that we are studying introducing Lexus to India. However, we would like to refrain from commenting on details such as timing, models etc., as it relates to future product plan."

It's not the first time that Toyota has made a decision to launch Lexus in India. Back in 2013, there was news of Lexus coming to India as an imports operation but an unfavourable import duty rate of 100%, meant that car imported by Lexus wouldn't be price-competitive since its German rivals already had assembly operations here.

Fast forward to today and the import duty hasn't been cut but hybrid/electric vehicles attract significantly lesser import duties. Lexus is looking to take advantage of this relaxation through a strong portfolio of hybrid vehicles. In addition, the recently announced FAME (Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Hybrid & Electric Vehicles) will incentivise hybrid vehicles up a maximum of Rs 1.38 lakh, bringing down the selling-price further. As a result of these policies, Lexus should be able to price its vehicles close to its German rivals, while being able to claim higher fuel-efficiency and lower emissions. In addition, these hybrid vehicles from Lexus would also be exempt from the NGT's (National Green Tribunal) ongoing crackdown on diesel vehicles, especially those equipped with an engine larger than 2,000 cc.

Autocar India has claimed in its report that Lexus will first launch its LX 570 SUV, which is based on the Land Cruiser SUV. This would be followed by a lineup of 

1. hybrid models including http://www.duangwatch.net/s and sedans. The performance of Lexus should be interesting to watch unfold as it would also indicate how well luxury-segment customers are willing to accept hybrids and a shift of engineering focus from performance and comfort to efficiency.www.sitewatches.com