New Delhi, October 15: Bullish on the Indian market despite global economic downturn, Swedish luxury carmaker Volvo said it will enhance its product portfolio in the country, including a premium sports utility vehicle to be launched sometime next year.
The company introduced a new variant of its existing SUV, XC90, in the Indian market, priced at Rs 58 lakh (ex-showroom, Delhi).
“Not many people are affected at the top end by the ongoing global financial crisis and the luxury segment is picking up very fast,” Volvo Car India Managing Director Paul de Voijs said in New Delhi.
He said the company is not facing any slowdown in the segment and is planning to introduce another SUV, XC60, in India after its European launch in November this year.
“We are internally preparing for the homologation process and will launch the car accordingly then,” he said.
When asked if the company was considering to foray into the small car segment in India, Voijs said, “We have 1.6 litre powered engine S40, V50 and C30 cars in our portfolio. There is a possibility of these cars coming into India, but we have not taken a decision yet.”
He, however, said the company did not have any intention to develop an India specific car.
Mumbai, October 9: Cashing in on the growing fad for green vehicles, Mahindra & Mahindra plans to launch its fuel-efficient SUVs in the United States by early 2009.
“We are planning to launch our commercial vehicles in the United States but we are not ready yet to share the exact date of launch,” Mahindra Group Vice-Chairman Anand Mahindra said in Mumbai.
The Mahindra diesel SUVs have already cleared the tests and fulfilled the stringent emission norms in the US, he said, adding the announcement of the launch would be made shortly.
M&M already sells tractors in the US.
To a question if people there prefer smaller vehicles, Mahindra said Americans are not against large vehicles but are increasingly averse to fuel guzzlers that are not eco-friendly.
“They want fuel efficiency so that they can be guilt-free” of not polluting the environment, Mahindra said.
He said the company was also gearing up to introduce vehicles that could run on bio-diesel, diesel-electric hybrids and other green vehicles.
“We are ready to launch bio-diesel vehicles in India,” he said, adding, “whenever the government gears itself to make available bio-diesel, we will be ready with our vehicles.”
Mahindra said that it is not true to say that diesel vehicles cause pollution but it is the quality of fuel used that is critical.
Delivering fuel to the fire was every early engine designer’s worst headache. In the 1890s, Rudolf Diesel proved the merits of his engine during four years of research. But it was Robert Bosch who made diesels practical by developing the first fuel-injection system, a fifteen-year effort.
On the gasoline side, when Henry Ford was anxious to get an experimental engine running on Christmas Eve in 1893, he assigned his wife carburetion duty. While Henry whirled the flywheel, Clara dripped gas into the intake pipe.
Their collaboration worked: Ford’s single-cylinder engine shot flames from its exhaust and shook the kitchen sink it was clamped to until Henry signaled Clara to cease fuel delivery.
After more than a century of these headaches, an ideal means of getting fuel to the fire is finally gaining production applications. Direct injection-squirting pressurized fuel straight into each cylinder-is the key to keeping internal-combustion engines relevant in the future.
For enabling a major step forward in gas and diesel engine power, efficiency, and cleanliness, direct fuel injection is AUTOMOBILE MAGAZINE’s 2009 Technology of the Year.
During World War II, direct injection enabled German fighters powered by Daimler-Benz V-12s to fly inverted, a maneuver that left their British Spitfire rivals’ carbureted Rolls-Royce engines sputtering. After peace resumed, Mercedes-Benz brought direct injection down to earth, making the 300SL and SLR sports cars the scourge of both street and track.
Gasoline direct injection began trickling into the United States five years ago on BMW V-12s and Isuzu V-6s. While injecting fuel into the combustion chamber requires approximately fifty times the pressure used with port injection and additional electronic control sophistication, significant benefits are delivered. Since no fuel is deposited on intake-port walls, the air/fuel mixture can be more precisely maintained, benefitting both mileage and emissions.
In addition, the cooling effect of gasoline droplets changing to vapor inside the combustion chamber facilitates a higher compression ratio without incurring detonation. Squeezing the mixture harder during compression and allowing it to expand longer on the power stroke wrings additional power out of every ounce of gasoline.
The nephew of singer and actress Jennifer Hudson was found dead in the back of an SUV on Monday. Hudson’s mother and brother were found shot to death 3 days earlier. (Oct. 27)
An online contest to promote Chevy trucks and the TV show “The Apprentice” has instead been used by environmentalists to condemn General Motors for building vehicles they believe contribute to global warming.
Last month, General Motors launched a contest to see which member of the public could craft the best commercial for the Chevy Tahoe, a sports utility vehicle. At ChevyApprentice.com, visitors could choose from a range of soundtracks and video clips of the Tahoe traveling through different terrains. They also had the option of writing their own text to accompany the video and music.
Click here to Play
Chevrolet let users make ads for the Chevy Tahoe, but a couple slipped by depicting SUV as a gas-guzzling machine.
One of the videos circulating around the Web featured shots of the Tahoe zooming through snow, mountains and desert. Over the video appeared the words: “Global warming isn’t a pretty SUV ad. It’s a frightening reality.”
Another commercial entry read: “Temperatures are rising. The polar ice caps are melting. Global warming is happening now. What will you tell your kids that you drove?”
General Motors will invest $100 million in its Tonawanda, New York State engine plant to produce an all-new, 4.5-litre V-8 Duramax diesel engine for the Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra light-duty pickup trucks and the HUMMER H2. By comparison with the existing Duramax unit the engine will improve engine fuel efficiency by 25%, reduce CO2 emissions by 13% and cut particulates and NOx emissions by at least 90% for GM’s North American market light duty trucks and the HUMMER H2 built after 2009.
This will be GM’s first engine to use a selective catalytic reduction NOx aftertreatment system with a diesel particulate filter to help achieve the Tier 2 Bin 5 and LEV 2 emissions standards.
Article source
GM (including its Opel, Saab, Vauxhall and GMDAT subsidiaries) currently offers 17 diesel engine variants in 45 vehicle lines around the world, and GM sells more than one million diesel engines annually, ranging from the 1.3L four-cylinder diesel engine sold in the Vauxhall/Opel Agila and Corsa to the 6.6L V-8 Duramax diesel supplied in its full-size vans, heavy duty pickups and medium duty trucks in the U.S.
GM first introduced the Duramax diesel 6.6L V-8 in the U.S. in the 2001 model year, since when GM’s heavy duty pickup truck market share has increased nearly tenfold.
Last week there was news of GM closing Midwest plants that build light trucks and SUVs. This forecast of decreased production, along with the higher cost of fuel, has triggered a reflection on similar circumstances we have experienced in the past. Higher fuel costs have plagued us for some time now. In the midst of this adversity the automotive and aftermarket industries have adapted and brought about change in the light truck and SUV industry, both from the OEMs and the accessory suppliers. There is very little doubt that we will need to build our vehicles and accessories lighter, stronger and much more fuel adaptive and efficient.
We experienced a revolution in products and vehicles in the late 1980s and 1990s when GM redesigned their pickups. The other manufacturers followed suit and the result to date has been more advanced, safer, lighter, user-friendly and significantly more economical vehicles. Now it is projected that the 2009 models are following this formula.
The only way we are going to transcend the difficulty and “challenges” we face is to match these changes with innovation, modernization and the desire to create a new climate to supply new and improved products and to find advanced ways to communicate these changes to the public. I recently had a discussion with a supplier who was prototyping a new product specifically geared to addressing the problem of better fuel economy for the outdoor market; it will also have impact in the light truck market. It is this enterprising innovation that we will again need to call upon from our industry. One of the challenges he stated was, “How do I get the word out?”
CHENNAI: Automobile manufacturer Hindustan Motors Ltd on Friday said they would be launching a high-premium Sports Utility Vehicle in the Indian market soon.
“We are expecting to launch the high-premium SUV ‘Outlander’ by this year itself in the Indian market and it would be placed between Mitsubishi’s Pajero and Montero”, Hindustan Motors Ltd Executive Vice-President Y V S Vijay Kumar told reporters here today on the sidelines of the company’s exclusive tie-up with Pune-based Opulent Auto Care Pvt Ltd.
To a query, he said that the price may be somewhere between in the Rs.30 lakh range but declined to give more details about the vehicle.
He said the sales performance of “Montero” was ‘phenomenal’ since the launch of the vehicle.
“So far we have sold 600 units and we are expecting it to increase this year too”, he said.
“We sell around 250 units of Pajero every month and cities like Delhi, Bangalore, Mumbai have reported good sales performance” he said.
Referring to their tie-up with Opulent Auto Care Pvt Ltd, which mainly caters to the Value Added Services for automobiles, Kumar said that the concept is gradually gaining importance from vehicle owners. “The contract with them is for three years and this particular segment is booming,” Kumar said.
2008 AUTO EXPO: TATA SUMO GRANDE
Tata Sumo Grande launched, priced at 6.6 lakh and above
The new Tata Sumo Grande, launched at the Auto Expo 2008 in New Delhi today, can take the fight to Toyota Innova and Mahindra Scorpio.
BY OUR AUTOMOBILE CORRESPONDENT
9 January, 2008
Tata Sumo Grande photo
The new version of the successful Tata Sumo, Sumo Grande, was launched by Tata Motors today in New Delhi on the opening day of the Auto Expo.
The Tata Sumo Grande will be priced between Rs 6.6 lakh and Rs 7.49 lakh (ex-showroom Delhi). The SUV is expected to be available in the market from February 2008 onwards.
The Sumo Grande is a lot more butch-looking than the current Sumo it replaces. Fit and finish - we will have to wait a bit more to find out about that.
New Tata Sumo Grande photo at Auto Expo 2008
“The company has been trying to bring in the contemporary aspect in styling and technology by infusing new features,” said Ravi Kant, managing director, Tata Motors.
The Sumo Grande will feature the Tata Safari’s successful 2.2 liter Dicor engine but it will be detuned to produce 120 bhp instead of the 140 bhp in the Safari.
The Sumo Grande still has the high stance of the Sumo - but we expect vehicle dynamics to be much improved. At this price point, the Sumo Grande is quite capable of taking the fight to the Toyota Innova and the Mahindra Scorpio.
Me, I personally always thought that the Scorpio looks like a heavily-made up grandmother in a miniskirt. The Sumo Grande looks immensely better to my tastes.
After months of speculation, skeptical claims of vaporware, and leaked photography, GM pulled the wraps off the 2011 Chevrolet Volt - its great green hope - at its centennial celebrations in Detroit.
It’s easy to see this isn’t the concept Volt, which debuted at the 2007 Detroit auto show. Engineers needed to improve aerodynamics for production, which explains why the flat, sharp surfaces of the show car transformed into long, rounded forms on the final product.
Though it may look somewhat different than the slinky concept shown at the 2007 Detroit auto show, the premise behind the Volt is still the same. Deemed an “extended-range electric vehicle”, the car is designed to operate as an electric vehicle until the batteries are depleted. At that point, a small gasoline engine kicks in to recharge the batteries - not drive the wheels. Owners will also be able to recharge the Volt by plugging it into either a 120- or 240 volt outlet when parked at home or at work.
