New launches blaze a happy road ahead for the auto industry
As the healthy spurt in car sales continues in 2021, electric cars, performance vehicles and small-sized luxury cars are surging ahead.
If the churn of the pandemic has charted any path, it’s proved that personal mobility is important. So despite the tough economic situation, car sales continue to be healthy. Even better, this trend is expected to continue through 2021 both because of the need to be mobile in Covid times and because of the economic recovery expected after that.
The future is electric
After a slight hiccup in 2020, this year promises to be electric, again! A couple of months ago, Mercedes launched the Mercedes EQC taking electric cars to another level, in addition to the already available midlevel Hyundai Kona and the MG ZS EVs. Adding more oomph to the electric cars range will be the Audi e-tron as well as the Jaguar i-Pace SUVs, both priced at around a crore each. But that is not all. This year will finally see the entry of Tesla and though details of its plans are sketchy, one expects to see the Model 3 on Indian roads before the end of the year. With a range of around 500km on a single charge, these cars are not as heavily dependent on charging infrastructure as the more basic ones will be.
Go Petrol
With diesel out of favour again globally, the trend towards petrolengined cars is likely to continue and for India that means turbocharged direct injection high torque engines that give a superior driving experience but not at the cost of efficiency.
Size matters but so does performance
And if you haven’t noticed, most of the electric cars available in the country are SUVs. And while electric is in, SUVs are not out! A global trend that started only a few years ago is going strong and SUVs continue to increase their marketshare in every segment including luxury. However there is a shift towards performance cars. So more and more companies will be launching the performance version of their cars’ badges like M from BMW, RS from Audi, AMG from Mercedes-Benz and SVR from Jaguar Land Rover will be in vogue. Both BMW and Mercedes already have seven vehicles each in their performance portfolios while Audi has tasted success with the recently launched RS Q8, making it the second high-performance vehicle in its portfolio, the other being the RS 7 Sportback. This trend will continue through 2021 with many more performance vehicles from luxury brands.
God of small things
And finally, the pandemic has ensured that safe personal mobility means traveling in your own car and that has seen a spurt in small car purchases and ownership worldwide. While luxury always used to be about big and opulent cars, we are seeing some trends towards small in size but big on luxury premium cars as well. Audi has launched the Q2 small SUV while BMW has launched the 2 Series Gran Coupe and will be launching the long wheelbase 3 Series, calling it the Gran Limousine. Mercedes will not lag far behind with its small luxury cars and there will be many more in the year to come. Small is the new big.