In India Every Car is called an SUV today. Inadequate infra, regulations creating funny practices.
India’s largest car maker Maruti Suzuki released their latest small car S-PRESSO last year and this is how they advertised it — a MINI SUV :-)
If you are car guy you will understand how funny it is to call such a tiny car that weighs 700+ Kilograms, has a 1000cc engine that churns out 67 bhp as an SUV. I don’t know if people understand S.U.V stands for Sports Utility Vehicle and which part of this small sized car the gentlemen in Maruti found to be sporty or utilitarian, just thinking 🤔
Real SUVs have three main characteristics — rugged go anywhere design with better approach and departure angles, raw power with sport mode and higher tow capacity, great utility area. None of these are available in S-Presso :-)
The approach and departure angles are very helpful even in city side where we have to approach and exit steep ramps in malls or even in some apartment entrances. In the picture below you can see a Tata Harrier easily getting down one such ramp in an apartment. My Honda city would have scared and run away at the very sight of this.
#Inadequate Infra (despite best efforts)
Definitely India has come a long way (pun intended) in improving the road infrastructure. The golden quadrilateral project that connected the four metros of India with highways marked the birth of comfortable long trips on personal vehicles. You can now safely do a 500–750 Kms per day road trip in India if you want. Govt is also increasing speed limits from 80 to 100 Kph in certain highways. The number of Leh-Ladakh trips from my office itself has increased considerably in recent years 😃 😀
But the problem is, for India with 1.3 billion people this is not enough. When we open up the roads and increase speeds in such a densely populated country the after effects are going to be high. India ranks #1 in road accidents and nearly 1.5 lakh Indians lose their life on Indian roads every year. A terrible terrible fact that we all want to change for ever.
Here is a screen grab of an accident video from recent times. A Toyota Etios jumped the median and crashed into a Maruti Desire resulting in multiple fatalities. Such incidents leave just one choice for Indian drivers — buy cars that are SAFER because everything else is out of ones control.
Also Weather has been acting weird globally in recent times with heavy rainfalls and flash floods. It has come to a stage where people feel, if you drive in India, it better be one with higher ground clearance to escape the water logged roads even on days that start as a perfectly as any other good day.
#Inadequate Regulations
Ten years ago, US increased the ROOF STRENGTH GUIDELINE from 1.5 to 2.5 times the car’s weight. I remember writing about it in my blog in 2009 and here is a screen grab of the same. At that time i had compared the roof of the two cars i owned — an Opel Astra (bought used) and a Maruti Zen and wondered how flimsy the Maruti’s roofs are. Today in 2020 the limit has gone up to 4 times the weight in US. Rules like these save lives in case of a roll over.
Most Recent Safety Regulation In India — Mandatory Airbags & ABS From April 2019
India is a bit slow in adopting safety regulations. The most recent safety regulation that i remember was making AirBags and ABS as standard features in all cars from April 2019. Even this move, which could potentially reduce thousands of names from the 1.5 lakh list (of people who die in Indian roads every year) was fought hard and long by the biggest car maker. The chairman of Maruti R.C. Bhargava , came out strongly opposing this law.
He said this move will increase the price of small cars and people who want to upgrade from bikes wont be able to afford them. This is from the company that added just 1 airbag in all its small cars because govt mandated just one. Considering the volume of cars you sell (approximately 1.5 million cars a year) they should be buying airbags at $50 a piece or even less and could have added 2 airbags at base edition. Sad they choose to stick to the minimum 1 airbag rule.
Here is an article from economist.com that shows why mindsets of car makers like Maruti are a huge problem for middle income families. The middle income group is by and large the ones that are dying on the roads. From 1990 to 2017 the chart below depicts how countries with high income level are getting safer and safer and how it is the opposite for countries with middle income level. You can read the full article here.
Crash Test Ratings — Ray Of Hope. But Will Indian Regulators Act ?
Recently Indian Car Makers Tata Motors and Mahindra scored a perfect 5 out of 5 in NCAP crash ratings. If Indian regulators recommend a minimum star rating as mandatory, just like airbag/abs as standard, to sell cars in India it would strike down half of those names from the 1.5 lakh list within a year.
Tata Motors leads the way with 2 5star cars — NEXON and ALTROZ and with 2 four star cars TIAGO and TIGOR. Within a short gap they come reached the pinnacle in style boy what a wonderful journey it has been from the first gen Indica. Absolutely stunning.
Nexon was the first Indian made car to get 5 star rating. This happened in 2018.
Within a year Altroz got 5 star rating making it the second 5 star rated car in India.
Mahindra followed suit with a stunning 5 star for its XUV 300 few days later.
A day later Tata Motors scored another milestone with 4 star ratings for both Tigor and Tiago
If you compare this with NCAP ratings of other cars that are sold in India including the top sellers Maruti and Hyundai it will show the stark reality of how bad our regulations are in letting millions of Indians buy cars that are primarily aimed at fuel economy and not safety.
Because of the above two reasons, inadequate infra and inadequate regulations Indian car companies have a field day selling tiny cars in large numbers and call them whatever they want.
#Top 5 Reasons for this SUV craze in advertising
- Indians, due to poor infra and water logged roads, prefer SUVs that have higher stance than normal sedans/hatchbacks
- SUVs are considered to be safe (they are) and owning an SUV gives them a sense of safety
- Car companies can charge a premium for SUVs, even those pseudo ones that at just hatchbacks on stilts
- Govt regulations are yet to catch up with reality. One day govt will pass regulations on roof strength, minimum crash rating etc. Till that day tin cans will be sold in millions.
- People with knowledge on this topic, including car magazines and influencers in social media and family circle keep quite instead of promoting the safety aspects of a good car.
Points 1–4 are not within the control of everyone. But point 5 is something people like you and me could do. Just keep sharing / talking about car safety to fellow car buyers. Help the junta get out of Kitna Deti Hai mind set and let them understand the difference between fake SUV, fake hybrids etc.
Spread the word ex-presso. It’s a matter of life or death for many indians who think they are buying an SUV :-).
