HARLEY-DAVIDSON IN INDIA?

Well, that's what I read on a news report today! The famed Harley-Davidson, which is known for its big, bulky, mean cruiser bikes is planning to sell it bikes in India. I am sure there are many people in here who drool on these bikes and presume it to be the ultimate symbol of masculinity, though I doubt if there will be many buyers. Read the story here.

People at H-D say that the problems they have with entering India is the stringent emission norms and steep tariffs. I am no economist to comment on the tariffs, but the stringent emission norms are definitely a nice thing. And Harley better send in only the bikes that don't leave everyone behind it choking for oxygen if they want to be here.

COMPETITION SANS FRONTIERS

If you thought Bajaj and TVS compete for their place in two wheeler market in India, that's just part of the story. They are trying to get to every place on earth where they can find a market. They have been planning out Indonesia for a while, and now it is South America. These companies have been known to be innovative in both technology and marketing front, and people are acknowledging that they now have two wheeler technology that is as good as any other manufacturer in the world. Let's wish them all the success in their endeavor to conquer the world!

THE NEW ACCENT: VERNA

The word has been out for a while that Hyundai Accent has a successor, and it will be called the Verna. There were talks of selling the old Accent and the Verna side by side, similar to Ford's Ikon and Fiesta, but it may not be so, as Accent's production has already stopped. Verna is likely to be out in the Indian market sometime in the later half of 2006.

Verna is supposed to be a much bigger car than Accent, somewhere the size of the Honda City. The Indian Verna is still not out of Hyundai's test track, and there are no reports about it. But a few lucky auto journalists have already had a look at the international versions of Verna, and the response is mixed. The folks at Autocar India got a chance to play with the Verna at Singapore and do not seem to be very impressed, while the guys at BS Motoring who drove it in Korea seem to love it.

INCREASE IN FUEL PRICES IS GOOD!

In the last few years, more and more people in the country are saying no to public transport and buying a means of personal transport. Sales of two and four wheelers have continued to show double-digit growth, but if the fuel prices continue to increase further, things may change to some extent.

Yahoo reports a poll result that a third of Indians see public transport as more viable option owing to rising fuel prices. This is still a small number, but further rise in prices may see more people opting out of personal transport. See more about the original report on ACNielsen web page.

Less cars and bikes on the road could mean a lot to our cities. We can breath the air that is a bit cleaner and see our roads less congested. Even better, we may see fewer children walking into hospital complaining of lung problems. But that needs more work on improving public transport and some commitment from people to give up driving every day.

Personally, I have been struggling for more than a year to cut down the usage of my car and have met with partial success. Though fuel prices did not deter me from using the car, traffic situation and worsening air quality did. I now use the bus to travel to work as much as I can but still get tempted to use the car occasionally. I almost never take an auto-rickshaw and take public transport when I have time in my hands and my destination is well connected. And I am now using a two-wheeler instead of the car unless I need to go long distances. I am happy that I am doing a bit to reduce CO emission, but I still feel the need to do more about it. And I feel that if we all do our bit to avoid driving unless necessary, we will be helping to make our city much more livable.

MARUTI CITIBANK CO-BRANDED CREDIT CARDS

You might have seen full-page ads in your newspaper a few days ago. Maruti and Citibank have launched a co-branded credit card, and Maruti has taken every effort to ensure that everyone knows about it. This is not the first time that a car maker is launching a co-branded card. Toyota has already done it with ICICI Bank.

It is an interesting development in the auto industry. Interesting because, most of the automobile services are traditionally weary of credit card transactions. Customers were usually asked to pay cash or cough up an extra 2-3% surcharge on the bill amount. A credit card launch by Maruti may or may not change such things, but if the manufacturers make a push, credit cards may slowly become more acceptable in the industry.

So it doesn't matter if you would want to get one of these cards, or it doesn't matter if this card would be of any benefit to you directly, but eventually it may help you to make your payments easier next time you get your car serviced.

END OF MARUTI ZEN

A few months ago, Maruti Udyog quitely decided to shut down production of its once best selling car - Zen. Sales of Zen had gone down to less than half of its previous year level, and Maruti probably did not see a point in continuing with it. As someone who liked the car, I pondered what exactly happened with it.

The decline in sales probably started after the Zen was redesigned and given a new look some time in the end of 2004. Was the new look bad? Not really. in fact, they had done a good job with the looks, and the new car looked contemporary. But when they undertook this major change in Zen, they did not look at anything beyond changing the external looks and adding some fancy accessories such as chrome finish gear levers or the fog lamps that never get used.

The zen did not really need a change of engine or gearbox. It had an excellent gearbox, and the engine performance matched its counterparts. But users of Zen had some long standing complaints: first, about the low road clearance which often caused problems in our bumpy roads, and second, the height of the car. To give an example, a friend of mine who was slightly above 6 feet was looking for options of buying a car. He tried out a Zen and figured that his head nearly touched the roof when he was sitting in the driver's seat, so he had to abandon it. As they were anyway going for an overhaul, Maruti could have considered looking into these problems. But they did not seem to have listened to their customers.

Another problem was with the variants in the new look Zen. The no-frills version - LX, which did not have power steering, central lock or power windows was not exactly in anyone's favour. The next version, LXi, which had all these accessories is what most people would have gone bought, but it had its quirks. It did not have some really essential things - such as the left side rear view mirror and rear window wiper. And the mirrors were not internally adjustable. Such irritants did not make the buyer happy. And if the buyer wanted these things he had to upgrade to the top version - VXi. VXi had many unnecessary frills such as chrome gear lever, fog lamps(chrome handles?) and such things that no one would ever want, and costed a whopping 30,000 more than LXi. That made it prohibitive. So a buyer had to give up on essential accessories or pay through the nose, which suited no one. I know two of my friends who were die hard fans of Zen and wanted to buy a Zen and only Zen. They were deeply unhappy though they eventually bought the top model, but you will not see many people that loyal.

So most buyers probably did the next best thing - go for a parallel car like Wagon R or Santro, or upgrade to next level, which could be the swift. But is Zen a car that Maruti can do without? I personally don't think so. Wagon R, the other car in the same price range is not a suitable alternative to Zen. So Maruti may end up sending out their customers to go and buy Santros. A few who can afford might choose the swift and another few who do not mind Wagon R may go for it, but my guess is that Santro would become the most suitable alternative for Zen. With Maruti having no immediate replacement for Zen in pipeline, they will only loose out an opportunity to sell an additional 3-4,000 cars every month.

FIAT FREE CHECKUP CAMP

If you own a Palio, Petra or Siena, call up your Fiat or Tata dealer; they may be running a free check-up camp for your car. It is going to be a month long affair where the Tata-Fiat dealers will have a look at your car and give necessary advice. See more about the story here.

TVS APACHE: MARKETING ON A CD

I picked a copy of Autocar India today from the news stand. When I went home and opened the magazine, something fell off from it. It turned out to be a CD about TVS Apache. They were innovatively marketing it on a CD.

The people who have worked on the CD seem to have done a good job of it. it is made using macromedia flash, and has some interesting images of the bike, feature and specs and more things. There are some goodies for the intersested - like some games, wallpapers and screen savers for download. Most of the stuff on the CD are also available on the TVS Apache website, and there is also a contest. Have a look at the site.

BIG PLAYERS GETTING INTO USED BIKES MARKET

Finally, used bike market is seeing some action like used cars. Companies like automartindia and Maruti Udyog have been active in the used cars market for some time now, and have given some safety and reliability to buyers, though at a price. A similar action is now likely to be seen in two wheelers too.

Although it is not going to happen soon, TVS and Hero Honda have plans to enter used bikes market. Hero Honda is already running pilot projects in a few cities, so it may not be long before they are in your city.

The good thing about organized players getting into used vehicles market is that buyers can be assured of quality, reliability and authenticity of the product they are buying. Inexperienced buyers could easily get swindled otherwise. Of course, all this goodness comes at a premium, and the buyer has to decide if he is ready to pay it up.

CHEVY AVEO USER REVIEWS

Most of the auto magazines have now finished reviewing the Aveo, and if you are among those who are about to buy a new sedan, you might have already read a few reviews. Now, with the car out for sometime and available in the showrooms for test-drive/bookings, user reviews have started trickling in on the web. Mouthshut has a few reviews of the Aveo, and most of the reviewers seem to be impressed with the car. The biggest complaint made by auto magazines was about the gearbox. Some of the users have also expressed similar opinions. Read the reviews here.

MAHINDRA BIKES?!

This seems to be interesting. Economic times thinks that Mahindra and Mahindra intends to get into bike market, and they are conducting a due diligence on LML's bike plant. The story also says that M&M is in talks with a chinese company. Would we be seeing some Mahindra bikes on the road in the years to come?

GROWTH IN AUTOMOBILE SALES

Many of the automakers in India seem to be cruising fast on the growth highway. I was looking at the April figures of a few car and bike companies that was announced in the last few days, and a lot of them have a good story to tell.

Skoda reports 54% growth in vehicle sales
Tata Motors - 51%
TVS Motors - 35%
Bajaj - 37%
Hyundai - 30%
Honda - 27%

Of course, there are a few who don't have such exciting numbers, but no one has a sad story. It's the market leaders in both cars and bikes who seem to be going a bit slow.

Maruti - 13%
Hero Honda - 6%

MID SIZE CARS

If you are looking forward to buy one of the mid-size sedans, i.e., one of Chevy Aveo, Ford Fiesta, Honda City or Maruti Baleno, you should be looking into current issue of Overdrive magazine(May 06). It is full of information and would be a useful tool for the buyer. Here is all that you can find about mid-size cars in the issue:

1. A full review of Chevy Aveo
2. A comparison of GM Chevrolet Aveo and Ford Fiesta - I am sure lot of people have been looking for this information.
3. A full-fledged comparison of all the four cars mentioned above. No surprises about who is the winner. Japanese technology rules!

In addition, I must mention that I am mighty pleased with all the content I found in the current issue of overdrive. Most of the information is relevant, readable and useful. And international coverage is limited to how much it should be. There are some more useful information like review of Kinetic Blaze, Bajaj Platina, buying used Palio, a brief long-term usage report on Honda City VTEC ZX, Maruti Swift and Octavia vRS, some stories on Indian rallies and many more stuff that are useful, meaningful and relevant. I look forward to more such readable and useful content from India's auto mags and a limited, moderate coverage of overseas cars like Lamborghinis or Jaguars that are almost never seen in India. I had once mentioned my discontent about too much unrelated content in auto mags - a thing that is fortunately not the case of this issue. And what I would look forward to see more in Overdrive is some focus on domestic auto industry news, which is not well covered.