Skip to main content

Will the shift from BS-IV to VI cost Audi in India?




By Ankit Berry

New Delhi: India is trying hard to move towards being a greener country and has been bringing in a slew of measures to curb the menace of pollution. In one such step towards a better India, the Government of India decided to move from BS-IV standards to BS-VI norms. Audi India head Joe King welcomed this, however,  apprehensively.

Joe feels that the move from BS-IV norms to BS-VI norms directly is a good move and it would be beneficial for manufacturers as it reduces complexities and therefore, the cost substantially. But he is scared that the adequate fuel quality to implement this may be hard to achieve.

This shift from BS-IV – VI has a target of 2020. This has most car makers in a fix as a slew of regulations are about to hit them. On top of that, new vehicles with a diesel engine capacity of above 2000 cc are not allowed to be registered in Delhi.

According to Joe, these rules have confused car makers in terms of the diesel issue. “We feel that short-term decisions lead to increased uncertainty and ambiguity for the future not just for manufacturers but also for dealers and customers. As manufacturers, we need clarity on policy directions so that we can amend our strategy in line with the customer demand,” said Joe.

“We welcome the move towards BS-VI. In fact, it would be beneficial for us as it reduces complexity and therefore, the cost substantially. However, we require the adequate fuel quality to implement this,” he added.

Despite this, he continues to see India as a market where the luxury segment will grow. “India is still very young in comparison to the other markets. Currently, it is a little over one per cent of the total market. In established markets, it is in the range of 10-15 per cent, so there is undoubtedly a huge potential,” said Joe.

Considering the fact that India is an important market for Audi, more than 95 per cent of the cars which are being sold in India are built locally. “India is a strategic focus market for Audi AG, and one amongst six Technical Reference Markets globally (the other five being Germany, USA, China, Japan, Russia),” added Joe.

In 2016, Audi has plans to launch at least 10 new cars. The new Audi R8 V10 plus and the new Audi A8 L Security-class VR9 ballistic security standard were launched at the Auto Expo 2016. However, Joe refused to comment on which model Audi is about to bring to India next.
Despite selling more than 11,000 units in 2015 they lost out to Mercedes, who sold more units. To get back into the game, Audi plans to get back in 2016 with a good product mix. Audi refused to mention any names which we could expect in 2016 but made it clear that Audi is looking at the right product mix. What will that be is still not known but Audi in the past decade has managed to figure out the pulse of the Indian crowd and its Q series SUV's selling well in India is a proof of the fact.
Probably, the secrecy Joe wants to maintain is for giving us a sudden shock with a car of a standard that India has never seen before. Till then all fingers crossed!
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

IS IT ISLAM THAT KILLS?

Terrorism, in the 21st century, is something that has not only shaken up all parts of the world but also has it brought bad name to the Muslims. People all the world over abuse the religion for giving birth to people who spread terror and kill innocents. And on top of that a new radical Muslim group springs up every now and then. But let us think about it rationally. Does all these incidents actually make the religion or so to say the the Quran a piece of shit? Consider a group of people forming a new radical group going about saying that their religion asks them to kill people, that their religion asks them to fight against the innocent. Does that mean we start believing that there is problem in the religious scripts of that religion? Anybody can claim anything, but we have been gifted with a mind which is supposed to be used rationally and not just follow arbitrary nincompoops. It is also baffling to see that whenever a terrorist attack takes place the media all over uses th...
4 comments
Read more

Commonly used short forms and their meanings

Ever since the days of our arboreal ancestors, mankind has been trying to reduce effort by innovating new necessities. And the result is in front of our eyes today. We want pizza, it gets delivered to our place. We want grocery, it gets delivered to our place at our convenient time. This urge of humankind to reduce effort has actually helped us in many ways. Like, if our ancestors would not have made use of crude stone tools, we wouldn’t have been able to make the sophisticated equipment we used these days. Thus, everything undergoes change. However, in today’s world, we tend to forget willingly the etymology of the transformed form. Taking the point of reducing effort to another level, let me take you through the commonly-used abbreviations. We all use them, though in our childhood, our teachers used to scold us for using them, nonetheless we used them for our convenience. Using an abbreviation in this fast-paced life is okay but not knowing the origin of the same may pr...
2 comments
Read more

Tum Kitne Afzal Maroge, Ghar Ghar Se Afzal Niklega!

It is hard to trace the origin of sloganeering or probably beyond my capability to do so but if we consider the broad meaning then sloganeering is an act to unite like-minded people, incite them and instill within them a sense of oneness, predominately for some cause. If I am not very wrong, if so I can stand corrected, sloganeering was made famous during the early days of uprising by rebels against the tyrannical rulers. In India, during the struggle for freedom, slogans were made to get people together and rise up against the British Raj. "Inkalaab Zindabaad" was one among many that was probably the most used and by far the most useful slogans used during those days. The two words simply mean "Long live Revolution" but the greater meaning had a great impact in the minds of millions who dreamt of waking up in a free country. Inkalaab Zindabaad was so famous that even in today's generation we use it almost anytime we wish to show our dissent towards s...
Post a Comment
Read more