Tata Motors planning a new small car 'Kite'

Modified On Jun 10, 2014 05:15 PM By Sourabh

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The homegrown manufacturer Tata Motors is planning to launch a new car codenamed 'Kite'. The upcoming small car will be placed against the likes of Maruti Suzuki Celerio and Ford Figo. As the small car segment is growing rapidly, the manufacturer with its new vehicle looks to gain some market share which it started to loose with the entry of new passenger vehicles.

The automaker will bring its new small car 'Kite' by the end of 2015 and it will be rolled out from the company's Sanand plant in Gujarat. If media reports are to believed Kite is being developed under MY15 programme. With this new product, the automaker looks to position itself as a high-volume product in the evergreen compact hatchback segment which constitutes to more than 30% of the total passenger cars sold in India. Sources close to the company mentioned that out of the installed capacity of 2,50,000 cars a year at Sanand, the new car is speculated to consume more than 1,50,000 units a year as per the RFQs floated by the company in the market. However, an official statement is yet to come on this new car but for now the company is tight lipped on this new subject.

"The company is looking at the vast potential as its current models like Indica cannot serve the small car market and Nano has not achieved the desired results. Kite would be placed in between the Nano and the Indica," a person closed to the development project said. Sources also mentioned that with the production of Kite, the Sanand plant will utilize its installed capacity of 2,50,000 units to churn some volumes for the homegrown automaker.

Amit Kaushik - principal analyst (Autos) - IHS Automotive, a global consultancy firm said, “Tata Motors has a great reach in market, but it has issues of quality as it is a key to success in this segment with demanding Indian customer have a lot of options to choose these days. It will be interesting to see how Tata differentiate their sub-1000 cc product and offers a greater value to the customer from the established products in the segment.

For the month of May, the total sales of the company in both passenger and commercial segment witnessed a downfall of 24% while for the passenger segment, the company registered a decline of 17%. With the new products lineup, the automaker looks for a better future.

Source: ET

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