What Will Drive The Indian Auto Market In 2019

Sport Utility Vehicles 

Sport Utility vehicles or SUVs are a trending globally, sales of SUVs are overtaking the sedans and hatches at speed. In India, this global trend is catching on, in 2017-18, we saw a 7 times growth in SUV sales compared to passenger vehicles. Most of the Manufacturers are introducing SUVs in their product line up, even in the luxury and uber luxury segment of the market, SUVs rule the roost. 

Tata is most awaited SUV, The Landrover based “Harrier” is slated to launch towards the end of January 2019, while Nissan is poised to bring the KICKS. Mahindra will be entering the Compact SUV segment with the XUV300. Hyundai will be updating its TUCSON with a facelift, The big boy Hyundai Santa Fe is expected to hit the Indian shores in 2019 as well. KIA Motors is arriving in India with its KIA SP-Concept SUV, reports suggest its likely to named KIA Trezor. The Renault Duster is due for an upgrade, The New Duster, unveiled in 2017 Frankfurt Autoshow is expected to hit the showrooms towards the end of 2019. 

SUVs are the wheels of choice in the luxury segment and the luxury manufacturers are bringing their complete arsenal of SUVs to India. BMW is slated to bring the all-new X7, X5, X4 and X2. While Audi is bringing the all-new Q3 and Q8 to the party. After 12 launches in 2018, Mercedes Benz is poised to bring the New GLE to India. 

Automatic Transmissions

With ever-growing traffic situation in our country, automatics provide the best comfort and ease of driving. Multiple Automatic Transmission technologies like AMT/TC/CVT/DCT/DSG are available in India and the sales figures show us a growing trend of purchasing automatics. Most of the Manufacturers are offering automatics in their product lineups. India being a price conscious market, the introduction of the Automated Manual Transmission (AMT) gearbox has been a key factor in generating interest in automatics in a traditionally manual gearbox oriented society. Today cheapest offering from Maruti or Hyundai has an Automatic Variant giving the buyer an option even at the entry level. 

We expect to see more manufacturers bring automatic variants of the cars and SUVs in 2019. 

Features and Creature Comforts 

Android Auto, Apple Carplay, Ventilated Seats, Connected Cars, Climate Control Systems and Sunroofs were high on the checklist of buyers in 2018. Moving forward to 2019 we expect manufacturers to include more features apart from things mentioned. 360-degree camera a feature only available in higher-end vehicles is present in Nissan’s upcoming new SUV – The Kicks. Similarly, the mobile app based connected features will be supported by more manufacturers. Auto Headlamps, Wipers and ORVMs with keyless entry and push-button start system have become a norm in 2018. In 2019 we expect to see more cars with 360 camera systems, LED lighting technology, Start/Stop systems to increase efficiency.

Safety Tech

The awareness to vehicle safety is very low in India. But Global New Car Assessment Program or GNCAP is making a difference. Recently Tata Nexon got 5 Star rating for Adult Crash Testing. The government is planning to come out Bharat NCAP for India in 2019. Manufacturers are taking notice and with Automotive Industry Standard 145 (AIS 145) coming into action from March 2019, Dual Front Airbags will become a standard across all cars along with Speed warning buzzer and reverse sensors. Anti lock braking systems (ABS) are gaining traction with the manufacturers as well. All two wheelers above 125cc will require to have ABS in 2019. New technologies like Electronic Brake distributions (EBD), Cruise Control and Adaptive Cruise Control are expected to reach budget segments. These safety features will help further reduce and avoid road accidents. The Government aims to reduce road accidents in India by 50 percent by 2020.

Petrol over Diesel

It has been one of the most progressive decisions in India to leapfrog directly from Bharat Stage IV (BS-IV) emissions standards to BS-VI in 2020. This will narrow down the gap between diesel and petrol emissions substantially. Available market information suggests that nationally, the share of diesel in the sales of sedans and small cars has fallen to 23 per cent, from close to half in 2012-13. Delhi has also reported as much as a 16 per cent drop in diesel fuel sales due to a decline in car numbers. While initially, the diesel SUV market remained bullish, petrol SUVs have gained ground quickly, Most manufacturers are bringing petrol variants of their SUVs. The share of petrol SUVs—a rarity a couple of years ago—has increased five-fold, from 3 per cent in 2012-13 to 16 per cent at the end of 2017-18. All big diesel car makers have started to roll out more petrol versions. This trend will continue in 2019, petrol will slowly become the fuel of choice for buyers.