Craze-- Coming up: A fuel efficient automatic Celerio from Maruti next month....
New Delhi: A new small car, with some variants priced below Rs 4 lakh, is on its way next month from Maruti Suzuki India's stable. The company has already ceased production of two hatchbacks - A Star and Estilo - and the new car will be showcased at next month's Auto Expo. Called Celerio, this car promises to showcase something Indian drivers are not very used to. Industry sources say the Celerio will be a one litre petrol car in two transmissions - manual and automatic.
The automatic may become the variant to watch out for since these sources point out that this car will probably deliver mileage of over 20 kmpl.
Why is the mileage Celerio's talking point? Because typically, the automatic transmission of any car offers fuel efficiency which is at least 25-30% less than the manual transmission variant. The Celerio, these sources say, will aim to offer good enough mileage and the automatic transmission of this car can also be driven in the manual mode.
Sources pointed out that Maruti's Japanese parent, Suzuki Motor Corp, took about three years to develop the technology which has raised the fuel efficiency of the automatic variant to almost equal that of the manual transmission vehicle.
India will be the first market where Suzuki will offer this technology though Celerio will also be available in a pure play manual variant. India has never really been a market for automatic variants since people associate the comforts of an automatic drive with much higher fuel costs and faster wear and tear.
These downsides of the automatic may well be addressed with the Celerio. As of now, the car will be available in manual as well as manual + automatic variants and initially, Maruti may look to sell 50,000-60,000 units in the first year after launch, vendor sources told
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