THE DEMISE OF THE LUXURY CARS

The recently concluded auto expo in Delhi shows that the major car industries are now changing their strategy to suit the requirements of the developing economies. All the major car makers of the world showcased their beautiful models and surprisingly the main focus was on the mileage of these cars rather than on the luxury.

Maruti’s Eeco, Toyota’s Etios, Chevrolet’s Beat, Volkswagen’s Polo, and Honda’s small car, all these cars were introduced for the first time in the Indian market in order to get a piece of the huge Indian market, whose major portion consist of the small car segment. Maruti 800, which was introduced in 1984, was the best selling car in India till 2004. This clearly showed that the Indians preferred the cars with a greater mileage than the SUV’s. Maruti thus dominates the Indian car market. By gauging the Indian market, Tata motors, last year introduced TATA NANO, which is the cheapest car in the world. Now Tata is planning to export these cars to the European countries.

When Manmohan singh in 1991 opened the Indian market to the foreign companies, there were some impediments in those processes and hence many companies did not prefer the Indian market. But with the increase in the purchasing power of the Indian middle class, most of the foreign companies are now competing for the Indian market. This trend also shows that the large SUV’s are now gone and the present consumer and the car manufacturers have been forced to shift his focus towards mileage as the price of crude oil is increasing every single day.