Porsche is planning to launch its four-door, four seat super sedan, Panamera, in 2009. The model is currently under design and developmental stage and will be the first four-seat sedan to go into production from Porsche.
According to Rod Wallace, Managing Director of Porsche India, the new four-seat sedan from Porsche will find potential buyers in India as it will come with a sedan that delivers performance of a sports car. Although there is an ongoing credit crisis in the country and the auto sales have slumped over the past few months, nevertheless, the luxury car sales have been unhampered. Porsche expects good market in India.
Growth of China’s auto exports is likely to slow down to 20 percent this year, down from around 80 percent last year, according to an estimate from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.
Chinese auto exports’ growth rate was about 35 percent in the January-September period this year, when Chinese carmakers exported a total of 557,736 vehicles. Since then, growth has slowed to around 20 percent. With the current liquidity crunch, Chinese consumers are curbing expenditure on buying new vehicles, and the country’s carmakers are getting hit hard because of that.
To offset the slump in domestic demand, some Chinese car/SUV/truck manufacturers are now looking at exploring new markets in Africa, Eastern Europe and various parts of Asia.
Skoda India is planning to launch four new models by mid 2009. It will introduce new variants of its existing models in India. This means that Indian customers will witness the launch of a new Skoda Laura, Skoda Superb, Skoda Roomster and the new Skoda Fabia Combi. “Hundred per cent in the plan is the launch of the Superb successor in the first quarter and Laura successor in the middle of 2009.
We will showcase the new Superb in November,” Mr Thomas Kuehl, Board Member (Sales & Marketing), Skoda Auto said. We hope people will prefer the five-seater Fabia Combi with a huge space to drive outside the city, to go to the countryside,” he added.
Skoda Fabia Combi was recently exhibited at the Lakme India Fashion Week in Delhi. It was widely appreciated by the media as well as the customers at the Fashion festival. The car is not due for an immediate launch but is a part of Skoda’s brand building exercise in India.
However, Skoda is a little apprehensive about the mass response from the Indian customers about Skoda Fabia Combi as it is a station wagon. Station wagons are not largely accepted by Indian customers. “It is difficult to predict the market for Fabia Combi because it is not a preferred body style in the market. We start with the niche,” said Kuehl.
In a development that could ultimately also be relevant for the Indian market, Hyundai plans to invest about US$600 million in Brazil, towards developing an all-new, low-cost, small car for that market. Apart from being sold in Brazil, the new small Hyundai could also be exported to some neighbouring countries.
Hyundai’s new low-cost car will be made at the company’s new plant in the town of Piracicaba in Brazil. With an annual capacity of 100,000 units, the plant will be ready and start producing cars by mid-2011. According to Hyundai VP, Kim In-Seo, the new car is already under development in Korea, and will be available with a choice of 1.0- and 1.6-litre engines, which would be biofuel-compatible.
According to CEO Stephan Winkelmann, Lamborghini will not decide on whether to proceed with the production version of the Estoque until next year. After that it should take about four years to develop the four-door car.
Winkelmann said that he expects the car to be greenlighted for production, but confirms that Lamborghini does not yet have a platform. As far as teaming up with sister companies, Porsche (using the Panamera platform, Audi (using the A7 architecture) or Bentley, Winkelmann says: “that a platform will be sought ‘within the group’.
India’s largest bike manufacturer, Hero Honda, is planning to launch seven new variants of its existing models to boost its sales during this festive season. It has already set an ambitious target for itself for the month of October to sell 6 lakh units this month. This month’s target from heron Honda is more than Yamaha’s annual sales target for the year 2009 which is 5 lakh units.
Hero Honda managing director Pawan Munjal told ET: “In our silver jubilee year, we aim to clock the highest sales in our history. We have pushed up our production and are aiming retail sales of 6-lakh units, which is much higher than our sales in October 2006, when we had sold around 5-lakh units. We expect our October sales to be the highest ever.”
Most likely variants to be launched from Hero Honda are in the 100cc and 125cc segment that include models like Splendour, Passion, Splendour NXG, Pleasure,Super Splendour, CD Deluxe, CD Dawn, Super Splendour and Glamour.
