Premium hatchbacks in India to get auto gear versions soon

The premium hatchback segment in India, which is growing at a very good pace since the beginning of this year, is all set to out class the starting range sedans segment, as popular hatchbacks including Suzuki A-Star, Volkswagen Polo, Nissan Micra and Honda Jazz are all set to be launched in new automatic transmission variants. With this, these new auto gear variants are expected to challenge even the top-end sedans with their unmatched value added features as accessories.

India's largest car maker Maruti Suzuki is gearing-up for an auto gear variant of its popular hatchback Maruti A-Star in coming weeks to take on Hyundai's i10 automatic transmission.  Recently, a senior executive of the company was quoted by a leading news daily, saying that A-Star is a trendy car for the young and the automatic transmission would help to capture the top-end of small car market.

So far, the automatic transmission equipped cars have a limited presence in the Indian market and there are only a few cars available in the premium hatchback segment that come equipped with an automatic transmission version including Hyundai i10 and i20. In an auto gear equipped vehicles, the gear shifts automatically depending on the variation in speed unlike the manual transmission in which gears need to be shifted manually.

The Hyundai i10 automatic variant is available in the price range of Rs 4.5-5.3 lakh which is around 15% costlier than its manual kin. It is speculated that the new automatic transmission version of Maruti A-Star will carry a similar price tag of Rs 4-4.3 lakh.