Auto India, Car India

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At the Manesar factory of Maruti Suzuki India LTD, production of new cars was hit when the company announced that it would only permit workers who accepted and signed a good conduct bond to work in the company, mentioning indiscipline and damage by workouts in the last 2 months during a strike in the month of June. Such move could even hit the new car’s production, the famous swift that has attained almost 85,000 bookings only within ten days after its launching even if Maruti executives told that the firm was in the probability to move its production to its Gurgaon Plant.

This fight could even curved into broad labor disaster in Gurgaon, Manesar belt in Haryana, which houses the factories of a number of auto companies with the president of the Haryana CTTU chapter of the Centre of Indian Trade Unions, Satbir Singh. Unions of a few other farms would even join the workers of Maruti for protesting against the action taken by the company. Continue Reading »

Audi has introduced the business edition of sports efficacy vehicle called SUV Q5 2.0 TDI Quattro.This newly introduced sports utility vehicle costs around 3,513,000. This new vehicle will be available in the market for purchase from October 2011.

Mr Michael Perschke, Head of Audi India, said, “The Audi Q5 2.0 TDI Q is perfectly equipped to further strengthen our leadership position in the luxury SUV segment. As the Audi Q5 already has a broad fan base in India, this attractive price will now make this premium experience accessible to a wider customer base who aspires to own a luxury SUV.” Continue Reading »

Now that sports stars like Sachin Tendulkar are getting linked to the racing franchise concept, India’s mostly under-rated motor racing fraternity is making most out of the arrival of Formula One to spark a heavy flow in domestic interest in their sport.

The workers are putting extra efforts to get the Buddh International Circuit into shape. Officials are already confident about the October 30 Indian F1 Grand Prix which will probably change the face of motor racing in a country like India where only cricket is considered a game of all time.

Vicky Chandhok, President, Federation of Motor Sports Clubs in India said, “It’s a dream come true as it’s fantastic to get F1 on home soil.”

Chandhok also rubbed the rumors of delay in completion of the $215 million track of about 40 kilometers from New Delhi in the town of Greater Noida.

The 5.14 km track is a part of a sports city which is being developed by Jaypee group, which has vast interest in real estate. This group has rights since 10 years for the Indian F1 race. The venue is being designed by the German architect Hermann Tilke who is specially known for sports architecture.

In order to capitalize due to this recent boom, a motor sport management company has announced a launch regarding city-based franchise competition in December 2011, though using cricket star Tendulkar as its brand ambassador.

The i1 super series, which has sought clearance from the motorsport’s governing body, FIA (the Federation Internationale de I’Automobie). It will feature teams from nine big cities of India competing in seven Asian cities: New Delhi, Doha, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Pattaya, Kuala Lumpur and Thailand.

M Darshan, Machdar Motorsports chief executive told press in Mumbai, “Cricket and Bollywood stars as well as some top industrialists have shown a keen interest to own teams.”

It is said that to increase the hype regarding this sport as initially evoked by 2005 champ Narain Karthikeyan who was the first Indian to race in such high profiled series for Jordan.

Karthikeyan, who drove for Hispania in the early stages of his career in F1 championship, thinks that the Indian Grand Prix is sure to make motor racing a mainstream sport.

Karthikeyan said, “I’m absolutely sure that its success will be the starting point for a big surge in Indian motorsport. We’ve been on the threshold for a few years now and this should give us a shot in the arm.”

Karun Chandhok, Vicky Chandhok’s son who followed the footsteps of Karthikeyan since he did his debut with Hispania last year and then switched to Lotus, thinks that business support is important.

Released, a week ago, the free application allows its users to share, discover and rate the world’s most interesting driving routes contributed by the users worldwide. By incorporating GPS, this app will also be able to find routes regarding a particular location, and will alert the users when new routes will be discovered.

Pawan Murthy of BMW Group Financial Services said, “There are plenty of sites that will show you the top roads to drive. The roads that are filtering up (in the app) include others that very few people have ever heard of, and that’s what makes it so exciting.”

Till date, more than 600 routes had been added to the application. Murthy said, “The most interesting routes are those with the best scenery and, for drivers with sporty cars, include many twists and turns. Points of interest and restaurants or cafes with good food, also get a lot of mentions. One user, who added a route just west of Denver that runs along North America’s highest elevated public road warned drivers to ‘watch for bighorn sheep’.”

There is another route that takes drivers along a trip that ends at Arkansas oldest operational general stores. He added, “It starts getting very granular from a user-experience standpoint as to what people will share on the app.” Continue Reading »

New Delhi: Britain’s iconic motorbike manufacturer, Triumph, is all set to enter the Indian premium bike market and has appointed Ashish Joshi, the former head of Royal Enfield Europe, as the Managing Director for its Indian venture.

“India is a very important motorcycle market and Triumph has assessed it carefully before deciding to step in. We see it as the next step in our global business model,” Nick Bloor, Chief Executive Officer Triumph Motorcycles UK, said while briefing reporters about the company’s expansion plan in the country. He further added that the appointment of Joshi as the MD of the Indian venture is a signal of the company’s earnestness to be successful in India.

Joshi was the head of Royal Enfield European operations before joining Triumph Motorcycles. He was instrumental in establishing Royal Enfield’s business across Europe. He has an experience of more than 16 years in Europe and Asia.

Although, no specific timeline has been specified by the company for launching its products in the country, it is speculated that the company plans to roll out its superbikes in early 2012. It is not yet clear whether the company will import or assemble units in India. It is also speculated that the company is looking to launch around 6-8 models from its range of 20 super bikes; these include classics, cruisers and naked sports bikes. The prices of these motorbikes range from 4.8 Lakhs to 9.5 Lakhs in the United Kingdom.

Triumph has been linked for an alliance or a stake acquisition with Bajaj Auto in the past. The company was established in 1902, and it has now shifted base to Hinckley, Leicestershire. It is renowned for the broad range of bikes it offers. Tiger 800, Speed Triple, Daytona 675 and 2.3 L Rocket III are some of its popular markets. Top global players of premium super bike market are looking to make inroads in India and Triumph Motorcycles is the latest addition to the list of companies which include BMW Motorrad, Ducati and Harley Davidson.

New Delhi: To further stagger competition in the small car segment, Toyota, the Japanese automobile giant launched Etios Liva on June 28, 2011. This is the first hatchback to roll out from the garage of Toyota Kirloskar Motors. Powered with a 1.2 L, four-cylinder, 16V, 79 BHP, 5 gear engine; the car is sure to be a pleasure for city driving and cruising on the highways equally.

Liva is the cheapest offering by Toyota with the prices ranging from 3.99 to 5.99 lakhs ( ex-Showroom, Delhi). The car is pitted against market frontrunner Maruti Suzuki’s Ritz and Swift, General Motors’ Beat, Ford’s Figo and Hyundai motor’s i10 and i20, which are all priced between 3.55 and 6.36 lakhs. The car is expected to give a staggering 18.3 kmpl on the highways and 14.3 kmpl in the city.

The car has been customized to suit the Indian customers. Toyota Motors expects to make further inroads in the Indian automobile markets with the launch of this car. Hiroshi Nakagawa, MD of Toyota Motors told the reporters, “India is an integral part of our global growth strategy. The Etios Liva has been designed keeping the Indian customer in mind and will help boost volumes in the country”.

Toyota, the Japanese auto giant, is working in India in a joint venture with the Kirloskar Group, is expecting to make further inroads in the market by the launch of this model, elaborating on this Sandeep Singh, Toyota Kirloskar Motors’ Deputy Manging Director ( Marketing) said “This year, our plan is to sell 60,000 units of both the Etios and the Liva. Out of which, more that 20,000 units will be the Liva.” He further added that with both these models in its arsenal, the company expects to overtake 13 different rival products in the B segment of the Indian automobile market. He said “The B segment constitutes 38 per cent of the total passenger car market in India. With the Etios (sedan), we are enjoying 8 per cent of that market.”

Jaguar, premium car manufacturer, now owned by Tata Motors is planning a grand launch of its Jaguar XF Diesel which is powered by a 3.0 L V6 engine. Tata Motors are thus going to usher the Indian car lovers into the new age of engines running on diesel fuels.

As of now, Jaguar is available in XF petrol variant powered by a 5.0 litre V8 engine. It churns out the maximum power of 385 bhp (Brake Horse Power) and maximum torque of 522 Nm. Remarkably, Jaguar XF petrol comes with six speed automatic gearbox which gives a brisk acceleration in just 3.5 seconds from 0-60 km/h and can cross the speedmark of 100 Km/h in 6.7 seconds.

Mike O’Diriscoll, the Managing Director of Jaguar cars has said that they were planning to launch Jaguar XF with 3.0 litre diesel with non-particulate filter which would run as per the availability of the diesel fuel. Continue Reading »

Yes the Canadian Grand Prix is back again. In 2008 FIA took the decision of removing Canada in its list of races. This is not the case in 2010. A quick flash back revealed that Canadian Grand Prix had been removed from the list due to many reasons.
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Luminous Power Techs, the Power Storage maker, will be unveiling their e-scooter ‘Lectrix’ next month and targets to sell approx. 23K scooters by a next year.
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The auto Company seems to be high on the hybrids. Initially, Honda launched their Civil Hybrid model in Indian market and now the homegrown hybrids are due from Mahindra and Tata in next 3-years. Considering their capabilities of frugal engineering to the new lavel, M&M and

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