Ever since cars have been rolling out in India like doughnuts off an assembly, the consumer is not only spoilt for choice but also getting what he wants and that is because most of the car manufacturers today claim that they have been 'listening' to the consumer, to 'understand' their needs and then apply it to their cars and eventually produce them. The flip side of this is that there a huge amount of cars, in fact more than our infrastructure can handle.
1. New Maruti Suzuki Alto K10We've already driven this car and without a doubt it will be one of the cheapest cars out there which will boast of an automatic transmission. This one gets the same transmission as the Celerio and it is called the AMT or automated-manual transmission. The new Alto K10 will be the very first in its segment to offer the AMT and this will certainly see Maruti Suzuki grab not only eyeballs but also sales figures.
Thanks to the AMT, the new Alto is now 75 kgs lighter and this translates into less drag and better fuel efficiency figures. The Alto K10 with AMT boasts of 24Km/l which is 15% more than the one with the manual gearbox. The car is scheduled to be launched in November and will be priced somewhere close toRs. 3 -3.5 lakh.
2. Maruti Suzuki RitzThere was a lot of buzz surrounding this car actually because there were talks of Maruti Suzuki discontinuing the car considering that AMT's like the Celerio and the new Alto K10 were to be sold. But well, there is no official word from the company yet and we have to include this one too. The Ritz in the automatic avtaar is available in the VXi variant and is the recipient of the 1.2-litre petrol engine and gets goodies like power windows, power steering, AC, ABS with EBD and tilt steering as standard.
3.Maruti Suzuki CelerioThe Celerio was the first car in the country to receive the AMT unit and it was essentially Maruti's way of saying that 'look, we've got new technology which is affordable not only to the customers but also to the company' The same gearbox which goes into the new Alto K10 was first showcased on the Celerio.
The Celerio with the same 1.0-litre K10 engine from the Wagon R gets a fair amount of power all 67bhp of it. Pair that to the AMT, whose shifts aren't as precise as the traditional auto-boxes, and you get a car ready for the road to tackle traffic conditions. With fuel efficiency figures standing at 23.1Km/l and the car priced at Rs. 4.49 lakh, the Celerio is yet another car from the Maruti Suzuki stable for the masses.
4.Hyundai Grand i10Hyundai clearly had a plan when they thought of bringing out the Grand i10 and that was to give the people a car which will be absolutely on the mark when it comes to space, features and driveability. The Grand i10 actually ticked all the marks but the people at Hyundai wanted to go a step further and give it an automatic transmission.
5. Honda BrioYes, there is a Honda in there to fight it out too. The Brio is a very loveable car by way of looks, the way it drives and if it comes with an automatic gearbox, even better. The Brio's iVTEC unit generates 87bhp and that is a big number for the size of the car. There is enough power at your disposal and though there are some who would prefer a manual transmission to make use of all this power, there are those who choose convenience.
The Brio comes with a 5-speed automatic gearbox which it shares with the Honda City. The CVT keeps the Brio in the power range and the smooth shifts keep on coming your way. Honda claims that the Brio is capable of returning 16.5 km/l which is acceptable for a small car with that much power. The Honda Brio AT comes priced at Rs. 6.05 lakh which is good value-for-money proposition.
No comments:
Post a Comment