CAR SERVICING MADE EASY

Servicing the car has always been a painful job. You will be grounded without the car for the whole day, and also have to take the trouble of leaving the car for service and rushing to office, and then hurry back in the evening before the service center closes for the day. What if the service center becomes efficient enough to return your car within an hour? A Toyota dealer seems to be trying it out.

It will be nice if everyone can do it. That would make servicing a really easy job. Go to the service center in the morning, just leave the car and go for breakfast in a cafe nearby. Have a leisurely long breakfast as you read the newspaper. By the time you are finished with breakfast and the newspaper, your car would be ready! It would be nice to see that happen.

HYUNDAI VERNA IS RELEASED

Hyundai has now launched its new Sedan that they have been talking about for a while - Hyundai Verna. Verna is a car that was initially assumed to replace Accent, but now both of them will be available in the market. But Verna is designed as replacement for Accent in other countries. Earlier reviews of the car are not very encouraging and people seemed to complain about the engine response and gears.

The new Verna's petrol version comes with a 1.6 litre, 103PS engine priced from 6.2lakhs to 7.35 lakhs. The diesel version is equipped with a 1.5 liter engine that delivers 110PS, priced at 6.5 to 7.7 lakhs. See more details on Hyundai Verna website.

CHEVY OPTRA CNG VERSION

Chevy Optra joins the small but fast growing group of cars that are available in CNG and LPG versions. CNG option is available only in the versions with 1.6 litre engine, that is, 1.6 Elite, 1.6 Elite LS and 1.6 lt royale. See the optra page on Chvey India website for some more info. The website says it is available in only select cities without naming them. This news story has some more information, mentions that it will be available in Mumbai, Delhi and Gujarat.

IS BAJAJ TAKING OVER AGAIN?

For many years, Hamara Bajaj ruled the Indian two-wheeler market with its well-known Chetak scooters. They had little competition to worry about until Hero Honda came in to spoil the party.

Hero Honda's new generation bikes that were reliable and cheaper to run became popular very quickly and it did not take long for them to become market leaders, taking over from Bajaj. They stayed on the top for a long time and stayed much ahead of their competition - Bajaj and TVS. But things seem to be changing again.

In August, Hero Honda saw decline in sales while Bajaj Auto's sales continued to grow. The gap in number of units sold by each of them stood at 30,000 - a number much less than what used to be.

In a market that is seeing a deluge of product launches, lower end of two wheeler market is nearly becoming like commodities. It is hard to point to models that stand out and no bike is considerably different from other. In such a market, prices and marketing become the key drivers more than anything else. With Bajaj and TVS managing to improve technology in their vehicles, Hero Honda's quality and technology edge is now lost. Besides, Hero Honda's attempt to gather a market share in the higher end with CBZ and Karizma has not met with the kind of success that Bajaj has seen with Pulsar and Avenger.

All is still not lost for Hero Honda. One of the reasons for decline is sales is attributed to strikes at their plant, which is temporary. Hero Honda plans to launch many models in the next few months, and their future could depend on it. They have also moved into scooters market by launching Hero Honda Pleasure. It is a market where Bajaj does not have a major presence, but wants to get into.

While Hero Honda can't be written off, it is likely that Bajaj will continue to improve its sales. It would be a fairly long wait before the winner is decided.