Maruti Suzuki, India’s largest car manufacturer is banking on its upcoming Celerio car model to cater to the demand for automatic transmission cars in the compact car segment in India. The new car is to be launched in the Indian car market in the month of February 2014.
With the launch of the new car which is claimed to offer automatic transmission at an affordable price, the automaker expects to further strengthen its position in the compact car segment in India. The carmaker has addressed the issues of low fuel economy, high maintenance and high cost of acquisition usually associated with automatic transmission cars.
Commenting about the car, Mr. Mayank Pareek Chief Operating Officer (Marketing and Sales) Maruti Suzuki India stated that there’s a sizeable segment of customers who want to buy an automatic transmission car but are discouraged due to high prices and low fuel efficiency.
While the Celerio will be priced higher than the manual transmission cars, the difference will not be significant. The fuel efficiency of the car as claimed by the carmaker is 23.1 kilometer per liter and a total of six variants of the car model will be launched, including 4 manual transmission models and 2 automatic transmission models. Moreover, the automatic versions of the car model will have the option of both manual and automatic drive mode.
Mr. Pareek stated that the Celerio compact car with EZDrive technology has been developed after an investment of Rs 570 crore. The bookings for the car have already been opened and the price of the car model will be announced at the time of launch.