With the new compact car, which is
slated for launch on February 6, the company has worked on addressing
three key issues associated with automatic transmission cars – high
cost of acquisition, low fuel economy and maintenance hassles.
"We
thought if we could address these issues, we will be addressing a good
segment of consumers who are looking for automatic transmission in
mass segment," Maruti Suzuki India Chief Operating Officer (Marketing
and Sales) Mayank Pareek said.
He said nearly 25 per cent of
consumers who come to the company's showrooms enquired about cars with
automatic transmission but the conversion rate was very poor once they
found those issues related with such vehicles.
"With
Celerio, which has been developed at an investment of around Rs 570
crore, having our EZDrive technology, we have addressed those issues,"
Pareek said.
While he did not elaborate on by how much the
Celerio with automatic gear shift will cost, he said, "the difference in
price with a manual transmission will not be significant".
Currently,
an automatic transmission (AT) version of a car in the market is more
expensive by up to Rs 1.1 lakh than its manual transmission version, he
added.
The company has already started taking bookings for the car, although its prices will be announced only at the time of launch.
In
the past, the company has launched AT version of its compact cars,
including the Zen and A-Star, but their prohibitive prices made it
difficult to crack the market.
The Celerio will be pitched
against the likes of Hyundai's Grandi10 and Honda's Brio, whose
automatic versions are priced at Rs 6.04 lakh and Rs 6.19 lakh,
respectively (ex-showroom, Delhi).
According to MSI, the
Celerio will offer a fuel efficiency of 23.1 km per litre and will be
offered in six petrol variants - four with Manual transmission and two
with Auto Gear Shift.
Celerio Auto Gear Shift variants will
have the flexibility of both manual mode and auto drive mode in the same
car, with a simple shift of gear lever.
The car comes
loaded with several features like alloy-wheels and blue-tooth
connectivity across variants. Celerio which sports 1 litre K-next
engine, would be available in seven colours.
MSI's current
compact car portfolio comprises Swift, Estilo and Ritz. During December
2013, the company sold 19,171 units of compact cars, down 14.7
percent, from 22,482 units in December 2012.
(Agencies)
