BALENO AND S-CROSS SHARPEN MARUTI’S IMAGE

The second article for Business Standard Weekend

  

Maruti cars have ruled the Indian roads since 1984 and dominate the small and medium car segments but they had never been able to make a serious dent in the larger passenger vehicle segment. Apart from the public perception about Maruti’s small car image there is also a problem with their roughly 700 dealers who were so focused on small cars that they do not provide the classy ambience that big car customers expect. Maruti’s larger cars like the Kaisan, Baleno sedans, SX4 and Vitara SUV were all good cars but failed to make a sufficient impression. Maruti is now trying to change this with the launch of their S-Cross described as a premium crossover in a set of spanking new NEXA showrooms. The new S-Cross, Baleno and other models in the pipeline will be promoted by a set of hungry new dealers trained and staffed to handle premium car customers. It has been a demonstration of faith for the scores of dealers who had to invest small fortunes into building snazzy new showrooms and workshops for unknown new cars. Maruti plans to have 100 NEXA showrooms by the end of 2016.

It has been a very long journey since Maruti Udyog first introduced their little 800 cc Maruti 800 in 1983. This quick, reliable, fuel-efficient and easy to drive little car was like a breath of fresh air after the clunky Ambassadors and Padminis and quickly revolutionized the Indian auto market opening the way for a number of other modern cars. It’s phenomenal success however branded Maruti as a small car maker and the brand persona was not grand enough for many buyers looking for a premium image especially with premium saloons being offered by international companies like Honda, Toyota, Hyundai, Ford, Chevrolet, Fiat, Renault, Nissan and Volkswagen. A lack of premium image also affected Tata Motors and Mahindra & Mahindra in their efforts to enter this auto segment. As a Public Sector company the Indian Government gave it such support that it’s phenomenal success raised Suzuki from a minor Japanese auto company to a major global player with India being the production base for the export of many small models.

Apart from numerous test drives I first got to really know the Maruti 800 when I drove my wife’s new car through the mountain tracks of Garhwal and Kumaon. The cute little car was quick and economical on the highways and surprisingly nimble on twisty and rough mountain roads. Being so light I was once even able to bodily lift it, with the help of a few locals, when it got seriously stuck. Maruti owners soon found that the car not only worked well but was easy and cheap to maintain with inexpensive spare parts at the many Maruti dealers. These features also appealed to scores of lady drivers who quickly became fixtures on Indian roads.

In July, Maruti let us drive their new S-Cross. Several `crossover’ cars had earlier successfully widened the market of India’s conventional car segments. 2 wheel drive `crossovers’ were not true SUV’s but SUV styling and bigger tires widened the customer appeal of several conventional hatchbacks and saloons. The Toyota Etios Cross was, for example, much more attractive than the `plain jane’ Etios Liva hatchback. The huge success of cars like the Renault Duster and Ford EcoSport made `crossovers’ very appealing especially for younger buyers and all the auto companies began adding bigger wheels and SUV trims to widen their customer appeal.

The sleek new Maruti S-Cross is roughly the size of a Honda City except for big 16- inch wheels that offer much better ground clearance and road grip. In looks it seems more like a luxury saloon than a SUV and is also provided with numerous luxury car features for excellent ride, comfort and entertainment. Like the Ciaz it has also opted for a curvaceous classic look rather than the angles and bumps that many competitors have preferred. It is also powered by two excellent new diesel engines of 1600 cc and 1248 cc capacity that belt out surprisingly peppy performance with exceptional fuel efficiency. The new platform also soaks up road noise and provides great stability at high speeds. It is not cheap but is great value. It may lack the SUV appearance of a Hyundai Creta but offers so much that there is already a waiting list of some 11,000 bookings.  

The S-Cross saloon will soon be joined by the Baleno hatchback that, at a lower price band, will appeal to a much bigger customer base. Actually, it is not really a hatchback but it’s sloping stretched sporty roof makes it look like one. It will compliment Maruti’s Swift Dezire that has become India’s top selling saloon but with more generous legroom and many very attractive features. No doubt these will make it cost more as well. We will soon know when the Baleno is formally launched near Divali.

I greatly enjoyed driving fire red Baleno last week around Jaipur. The first impression is naturally the appearance that also has the curvaceous lines of the S-Cross but with a very attractive front face. All car companies have tried to make their grilles distinctive but Maruti has succeeded with a fluid design that gives the impression of the bow wave of a motor boat. The Interiors are not only very attractive but surprisingly spacious for a car that has been squeezed in to measure less than 4 meters. It also follows the new engine philosophy of squeezing huge power and performance out of small engines. In addition to the conventional 5-speed gearbox the top petrol model offers an automatic CVT (Continuously Variable Transmission) that makes city driving very relaxing.

On the road I was immediately impressed by the new platform that not only absorbs road noise and vibrations but is so rigid that the car feels very stable at high speeds over 140 kmph. On the twisty drive up to Jaigarh fort the car handled the curves without a squeak of complaint. The manual, voice activated or steering controlled entertainment and navigation system is brilliant and the dashboard display is a class apart. As in the S-Cross it also has reverse assistance with a rear camera to let you know what lies behind in day or night. The big backlit blue panels not only show speed and engine revs but every other parameter of fuel consumption, temperature, etc., in several different graphic styles. It is powered by 200 cc petrol and 1248 cc Diesel engines. Fuel efficiency and good air-conditioning is a given for any modern car so they are not matters that deserve comment.

Baleno bookings are now open and there seems to be such a rush for them that the NEXA dealers who may have earlier despaired must now be smiling.

Baleno specifications

Engines cc                             1197 (petrol)                          1246 (diesel)

HP /RPM                          84 (62 KW) @6000              74 (55KW) @4000

Max torque                             115@4000                            190 @2000

Transmission                         5 speed MT/ CVT                 5 MT

Price                                      Not announced yet

VOLKSWAGEN DEFLATED BY A CHIP

This was the first article of a new column for Business Standard (Saturday) Weekend

The Volkswagen (VW) factory at Volksburg near Berlin was the first car factory I saw in 1980 before I became an auto scribe. Even back then it was almost fully automated producing a car every two minutes. It was amazing to also see their flexible manufacturing system where one assembly line could be building several different cars with different body shells, engines, colors, music systems, seat covers, etc. The master computer would send out every customer’s specific choices to a huge number of sub assembly stations that would then deliver them sequentially to the main assembly line. An army of robots like giant red insects seemed to be doing all the work and the few human beings would only spring to life if an alarm indicated some malfunction. The line could not stop and the workers would rush to fix the problem or put a magnetic marker showing the difficulty that was later fixed in the rework section at the end of the line. It was interesting to learn that auto technology was not only about cars but about the production technology.

A poor man’s car had been the Holy Grail for several automotive companies. Apart from the VW Beetle there was the older Fiat 500, the British Mini and the French Citroen 2 CV. After the war Japan also promoted a few smaIl very basic cars and one of these was to evolve into the Maruti 800 that revolutionized Indian roads. I first drove a battered Volkswagen Beetle in 1957 when it was being repaired at a workshop next to where I was trying to restore an old 500 cc Jawa 4-stroke motorcycle that I had found junked in Old Delhi. It felt a bit strange driving with a rear engine car but I found the ride and handling very good and the inner space and comfort amazing, The small boot in front of the passenger compartment was also very inadequate. It was however very strongly built and the owner loved it as is the case with most Beetle owners. In 1959 I went to France to study and fell in love with another strange car that too had once sold in millions. This was the Citroen 2-CV that had a compact engine and gearbox in front. I later drove one from Mumbai to Delhi in the monsoons and so fell in love with it that I persuaded Escorts Limited in 1983 to try to make it in India. The Indian government would not approve it as they felt it might affect the Maruti project.

VW began life before the Second World War in 1937 and its first car was a very basic car designed to be cheap to make and cheap to run. It had a small air-cooled engine in the rear to make place it close to the transmission for reducing the fuel consumption and increasing space in the passenger compartment. It evolved in a number of models to ultimately become the famous `Beetle’ that became one of the most popular cars in the world. 15 million units were produced at Volksburg upto 1972 until new safety and emission norms made it necessary to shut down. I continued to however be made in Mexico till 2003 by which time it had a record production of 21.5 million units. Though VW also made many other successful cars a demand for the iconic brand resulted in a modern new Beetle but it was not however a great success. In 2014 VW was neck to neck with Toyota as the largest automaker with a global production of just over 10 million cars and commercial vehicles.

Despite a formidable pedigree VW got off to a slow and shaky start in India. For many years it dismissed India as being an unsuitable production centre until they saw that several international brands, including their own fully owned subsidiary Skoda, were doing very well. Then in 2005 one of their senior representatives got into an ugly bribery scandal in Andhra Pradesh so VW ended up as being the last major auto company to set up shop in India. In 2007 they began production and today have a big plant at Chakan near Pune and investments of Rs. 4000 Crores to make 200,000 units per year.

The Polo hatchback is their most popular model but they also make the Vento, Jetta and Passat saloons. In 2014-15 VW sold 42,827 units making them India’s ninth largest automaker. VW also market several imported models like the Taureg SUV the new Beetle and the luxury Phaeton saloon but these imports are not very popular. Despite their great reputation, competitors led by Maruti-Suzuki but including Hyundai, Toyota, Honda, Tata, Ford and GM have done much better. In a highly competitive market customers want the best cars their money can buy and the magic of the great VW name has become a bit tarnished.

In the last two decades auto technology has steadily moved from mechanical engineering to electronics. Even small cars have over a dozen microprocessors and chips to control engine management, suspension, braking steering, climate control, lighting and almost every function. These are essential for the constantly increasing demands of safety, fuel efficiency and pollution control. Modern cars now have more chips in them than a packet of wafers. The most important component is probably the electronic control unit (ECU) that calibrates the fuel supply to meet every road and load condition with sensors to measure the temperature, oxygen levels, speed and every other parameter.

VW however took its technology a bit too far. Since 2009 VW began introducing an secret code into its diesel vehicle software to track the steering and pedal movements when these indicated that the car was being tested for nitrogen oxide emissions and the car would automatically turn its pollution controls on. The rest of the time, the pollution controls were off. The regulators had no way of knowing about this technical ruse. The problem was discovered by the International Council on Clean Transportation, which wanted to investigate why there was such a huge discrepancy between laboratory tests and real-road performance for several of VW's diesel cars. Investigators stuck a probe up the exhaust pipe of some VW's clean diesel cars and drove them from San Diego to Seattle and found that VW's Jetta and Passat were emitting many times as much nitrogen oxide as was found in lab tests.

In May 2014, both California's air pollution regulator and the EPA ordered Volkswagen to fix the problem but the road performance still didn't match lab tests. VW finally cracked and admitted the existence of these pollution defeat devices, which had been carefully hidden in their software codes. VW admitted that some 11 million clean diesel vehicles were affected. The models expected to be recalled and rectified include: The 2009-2015 VW Beetle 2.0L TDI; 2009-2015 VW Golf 2.0L TDI; 2009-2015 VW Jetta 2.0L TDI; 2009-2015 Audi A3 2.0L TDI; and 2014-2015 VW Passat 2.0L TDI. It has been the biggest ever scandal of the global auto industry that will cost the company a fortune in recalls and fines. It took generations to build the great VW reputation and one little chip was to completely deflate a great company.

When the scandal broke in September 23, 2015 Martin Winterkorn the CEO of Volkswagen AG said…”I am shocked by the events of the past few days. I am stunned that misconduct on such a scale was possible in the Volkswagen Group. As CEO I accept responsibility for the irregularities. I am doing this in the interests of the company even though I am not aware of any wrongdoing on my part.” Everyone loves a good disaster and there are now reports that Hollywood is planning to do a film on this corporate disaster.

THE MYSTERIOUS TEMPLE OF MASRUR

Every summer many thousand people drive on holidays to Kulu, Manali or Daharamshala but very few know that a small detour from their usual destinations will take them to one of the most amazing temples of India. It is also perhaps the oldest Hindu temple in north India. India’s earliest temples were cut inside caves of hewed out of living rock until the south Indian technology of building with prefabricated pillars, beams and panels became popular after the 9th century AD.

The Kailash temple at Ellora is the biggest and most famous temple of this type that was cut from top down out of a huge single rock face. Masrur is the only such temple in north India and is roughly dated to the 8th century. It is also built in the classic old style with fifteen shikaras and a big water tank in front of it. The shikaras like the peaks of the mythical Mount Meru look remarkably similar to the famous Hindu temples of Ankor Vat in Cambodia.

You will need about fours to reach Masrur from Mandi so it is recommended that you break your journey to spend the night at Kangra or Dharamshala and then do an easy day trip to Masrur and back. After driving on the national highway towards Mandi on the road to Kulu there is a excellent road to Pathankot that runs just south of Dharamshala. You can also go via Jullundur, Hoshiarpur and Una to connect to this road. You then drive west for just over an hour. It is 32 Kms west of Kulu on the Nagotra – Surian link road. It is a very picturesque drive through rocky Shivalik hills and small patches of cultivation with the majestic Dhauladar mountain range to the north. The drive is through some very rugged country with deep ravines and thorny trees that look as if dinosaurs are lurking in the shadows but visitors will bee struck speechless when they see the magnificent edifice.

As there is no inscription or mention in any ancient text, nobody knows who built this great structure or when. It is also a mystery as to why this gigantic symbol of devotion was built in such a remote and unfertile area. There is no record of what king was the patron to build such a large temple that must have needed millions of man hours of devoted labour to say nothing of huge funds that could not have been squeezed out of farmers in such a rugged area.

The elaborate carvings despite huge damage from the 1905 earthquake show that it was originally a Shiva temple that had been completely abandoned because wandering priests quite recently made it into a Ram Lakshman temple with three black stones representing Ram, Lakshman and Sita inside the inner sanctum. The drive is a little off the beaten track but it is a most picturesque and rewarding experience with lovely spots for a picnic on the way.