The Indian duo of Tata Motors and Mahindra have been fighting it out in the Indian automotive marketplace ever since. In the process, both the companies have landed up in developing vehicles which compete with each other, the Bolero-Sumo, Safari-Scorpio and now the Aria-XUV500 being prime the prime duels. What is interesting to know is, with each of these models, it was Tata Motors who had the first mover advantage but it was Mahindra who had the last laugh. Tata Motors launched the Aria with enthusiasm and much fanfare only to see their party being gate crashed with the launch of Mahindra’s XUV500, which received more bookings in a week, than the Aria had received in its full existence since its launch early this year.
Now, as part of its recovery plans for the Aria, Tata Motors plans to launch an automatic variant, which was spotted by a reader of my blog “www.anything-on-wheels.blogspot.com” in Pune. This ‘On Test’ Aria that was spotted at Pimpri had no badges or external touches to distinguish itself from its manual counterpart but the reader claims to have seen the interior of the vehicle. The Aria Automatic will be the very first auto-box from Tata Motors and we can assume significant help from Jaguar and Land Rover would have played a key role in the development of the AT version. The Aria Automatic will cost slightly more than the manual variants and Tata Motors needs to revise the prices quickly in order to ensure the Aria Automatic is a success.
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
The magic will not work what ever you do Tata. Aria is not visually appealing on the outside. Thats the basic problem. Also, Tata is not viewed as a premium brand. Selling SUV above 15 Lakhs is not easy. I think they should learn from Safari. When Safari was intriduced.. nothing in the Indian Market looked like that. That was its USP and people liked it.
First and foremost, show your individuality in someother thing. Not in headlamp and tail lamp.
More than the looks and Tata’s lack of brand image, the biggest hurdle for the Aria right now is that it is being perceived by many as priced a little higher than what it should have been. It is this image of a ‘Not VFM’ product that’s hurting the Aria badly.