Special Offer for Government Employees from Hyundai

Hyundai India has offered special discounts for government employees on purchase of its cars. The scheme is applicable to both central government and state government employees and also includes employees of government owned companies.

Hyundai is the second largest manufacturer in India after Suzuki. Car sales in India are on slight decline inspite of government’s recent concessions in Excise Duty.

Hyundai said that employees will be entitled for discounts up to Rs. 30,000 depending on the type of model under the scheme known as ‘Pride of India’. 

Interested thing is that public never considered government employees as pride of India. It has been a feeling of ‘Burden of India’ for them. Car companies have been brining this kind of offers for government employees as only they have good salary and can pay for the EMIs at a time when economy is trying to recover from a dull period.

Honda Mobilio coming this July

The space hungry people in India have some reason to cheer. Another Multi Utility Vehicle (MUV) is all set to enter the market, this time from Honda. At the moment, there are a few of them namely Innova from Toyota, Ertiga from Suzuki, Enjoy from Chevrolet, Evalia from Nissan etc. Out of these, only the first two have been doing good numbers in the market. So, Mobilio will face competition from Innova and Ertiga, or we can say that these two Japanese will be dragged to the boxing ring by another Japanese.

Innova is the first one among these and a long established vehicle. Known for its reliability and decent performance, it has been the favourite of taxi operators. However, private users have not found it to be much attractive, for two reasons i.e. (i) big size, utterly unsuitable for driving in cities (length of 4.59 meters and width of 1.76 meters) and (ii) bigger price that exceeds Rs. one million.

 Toyota Innova

Suzuki Ertiga

In 2012 came Ertiga and changed the mindset of people who now looked at this type of vehicle as a good personal car.  A car with reasonable price and with size that was manageable in city driving. 4.27 meters long and 1.69 meters wide, this was definitely better than Innova for use in cities. Combined with Suzuki’s fuel efficient engines, reliability and a service network whose reach remains unequalled so far, Ertiga proved to be a hit. And thus started the series of launches under this class of vehicles, called MUV. Nissan, Chevrolet came with their products but failed. Failed because they did not bring any thing that could pass. They took a box, put an engine and four wheels there and served it. And people refused those boxes.

Now comes Honda. Next month, Mobilio will be launched in India. It is already in service in some south eastern Asian countries. It will be powered by 1.5 liter i-DTECH diesel engine and 1.5 liter famous i-VTECH petrol engine. And both these engines produce good power enough to push this 7 seater car. In this aspect, it is better than Ertiga, whose both diesel (1.3 liter) as well as petrol engines (1.4 liter) are smaller. But the problem lies with the refinement of Honda’s diesel engine which has been recently developed. It is already in Amaze and City and is not in the class of Suzuki’s 1.3 liter multi-jet engine (used by Suzuki but developed by Fiat). In spite of crudeness of i-DTECH, it is powerful and it is fuel efficient. The certified mileage figures for Amaze and City are in the range of 25-26 kms per liter.

Mobilio

It will attract buyers provided Honda prices it reasonably. And looking at the recent history of Honda relating to Amaze and City, we can expect it will be priced competitively.

Other aspects of Mobilio i.e. looks, ride and handling etc. coming shortly on this site after its launch.