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Tag: Suv

  • Lamborghini to launch its first plug-in hybrid SUV

    Lamborghini to launch its first plug-in hybrid SUV

    Italy based luxury sports car manufacturer Lamborghini is all set to launch its Urus SUV range, informed the company in an interview to a popular media publication. The company also confirmed that Urus will also feature the brand’s first plug-in hybrid, and that it will be the brand’s first and only SUV to get a plug-in hybrid system.

    Lamborghini Urus shares its platform with its cousins Audi Q7 and Bentley Bentayga and will also feature 48V-powered active anti-roll suspension. This is also the company’s first SUV since the LM002 which was on sale from 1986 to 1993.

    Lamborghini R&D chief Maurizio Reggiani has assured that there won’t be any compromise when it comes to the power of the car and all other variants of its SUV will get naturally aspirated engines.

    He added “A supersports car is completely different; you need the responsiveness of the engine, to feel the spark of every cylinder. We will keep normally aspirated engines for our other models. They are still the best choice.”

    The company also sees a strong distinction between its front-wheel-drive models and the increasing number of Rear-Wheel-drive variants in its portfolio. Lamborghini will continue to offer both the driveline systems as Reggaini explains that “a modern electronic chassis control system like that of the Huracan LP580-2 is no substitute for the ability of four-wheel drive to transfer power to the road.”

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  • Mercedes bets on SUV next year

    Mercedes bets on SUV next year

    In a sluggish automobile market, German automaker Mercedes-Benz aims to push up sales of sports utility vehicles (SUVs) in 2017, which may see strong demand from young and successful people.

    SUVs accounted for 35 percent of Mercedes’ total sales of 2,724 cars in the first 10 months of this year, almost unchanged from the same period last year. Sixty five percent of the company’s sales derived from sedans and other models.

    The contribution of SUV sales surged by 7 percent as of October, up from only 28 percent last year, Kariyanto Hardjosoemarto, deputy director of sales operations and product management at Mercedes-Benz Indonesia (MBI), said on Wednesday.

    “According to market trends, SUV sales will increase higher than sedans next year,” he said on the sidelines of the 2016 Mercedes-Benz Star Expo.

    Many customers preferred buying SUVs due to poor road conditions in the country, triggered by a number of ongoing infrastructure projects, while some also considered the risk of flood, Kariyanto said.

    Despite the continuing domination of multi-purpose vehicles (MPVs) in Indonesia, the SUV market is expanding rapidly as seen by tighter competition among car manufacturers.

    Major automakers like Toyota and Honda rolled out new models to tap into this potential market throughout this year.

    In the premium SUV market, Mercedes has made a similar play, introducing its GLC model, along with its rival BMW, which launched the X3.

    Although he declined to specify the firm’s sales target for next year, Kariyanto said Mercedes’ top-selling SUV models so far were the GLC, with prices ranging from Rp 899 million (US$66,494) to Rp 1.23 billion, and the GLE, sold for between Rp 1.09 billion and Rp 1.56 billion.

    Behind the growth of Mercedes’ SUV segment are female customers, who apparently choose the model for reasons of safety combined with the comfort that resembles a sedan, according to MBI deputy director of marketing communication Hari Arifianto.

    “Women accounted for 20 percent of our SUV buyers,” he told.

    Amid a persistent economic slowdown that has squeezed people’s purchasing power, the domestic automotive market has gone through a bleak few years of late.

    Car sales, an indicator of consumption in Southeast Asia’s largest economy, only rose by 2.55 percent to 874,847 cars in the January-October period from last year, according to data from the Indonesian Automotive Manufacturers Association (Gaikindo). Sales in October alone went up by just 3.8 percent to 91,846 cars.

    Citing data from Gaikindo, Kariyanto said premium car sales had increased by 0.3 percent year-to-date.

    Despite the flat growth, the firm is optimistic that the luxury car market will recover next year on the back of Indonesia’s demographic bonus, which is marked by a large pool of productive people.

    This outlook underpins the company’s plan to focus on selling cars to young and successful people.

    “CEOs of online marketplaces or owners of app-based startups are all our targets,” Hari said.

    The company hopes that the so-called new generation compact cars, which consist of the A-Class, the CLA and the GLA, will attract younger buyers.

    Comprising sedans and SUVs, the cars are sold at more affordable prices, starting from around Rp 600 million.

    Mercedes launched more than 10 product line-ups this year. On Wednesday, the company unveiled its two latest models, namely the Mercedes-Benz AMG S 63 Coupe and the Mercedes-Benz SL 400, sold for around Rp 6 billion and Rp 2 billion, respectively.

  • Honda plans North American production shifts to make more SUVs

    Honda plans North American production shifts to make more SUVs

    Honda Motor Co is shifting around its North American vehicle production mix and may raise imports from Japan to squeeze out more SUVs as it struggles to keep up with strong U.S. demand for larger models, a factor which has prompted the automaker to trim its annual sales forecast.

    From early next year, Honda will dedicate production at its Alabama plant to its Pilot SUV, Ridgeline pick-up truck and Odyssey minivan, shifting production of its luxury Acura MDX SUV to its plant in Ohio as part of efforts to align its overall production of popular models to better reflect market demand.

    Demand for multi-tasking vehicles from cost-conscious consumers and historically low gasoline prices have ramped up demand for SUVs and other larger models over that of passenger cars.

    So far this year, roughly 59 percent of all new vehicles sold in the world’s No.2 auto market have been light trucks, versus 41 percent passenger vehicles, compared with 55 percent and 45 percent, respectively, a year earlier.

    In comments scheduled for release on Thursday, American Honda Motor Co CEO Toshiaki Mikoshiba told reporters that by also shifting more production of its popular CR-V model to its Indiana plant from Mexico, and producing more of its HR-V models in Mexico, the company planned to lift its production weighting between light trucks and passenger cars more in favor of light trucks, from an even balance currently.

    “While maintaining our current overall capacity (in North America), we’d like to also consider our production options in Japan … to produce more light trucks to respond to strong demand,” Mikoshiba said.

    “So long as we don’t see a sudden reversal in gasoline prices, we believe this would be the right move for the market.”

    Japan’s third-largest automaker by vehicle sales also said that it was considering producing the CR-V and the Civic sedan in Japan to be exported to North America to fill any gaps in local production.

    Honda is planning to market the recently revamped Civic in Japan, which a company spokeswoman said would add to production capacity, while it is also considering marketing the latest CR-V at home.

    Last month, Honda lowered its annual North American vehicle sales forecast to 1.985 million, from its previous expectation for 1.990 million, due in part to the skew in market demand.

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  • GM to add SUV production line at China JV in 2017

    GM to add SUV production line at China JV in 2017

    General Motors Co (GM.N) plans to launch a new SUV production line at its joint venture factory in the Chinese central city of Wuhan during the first half of 2017, the official Xinhua News Agency reported on Sunday, citing company sources.

    SAIC General Motors (SGM), a joint venture between China’s SAIC and General Motors, started operations at the Wuhan plant last year. The new production line will be able to produce 360,000 vehicles a year, bringing the combined capacity to 600,000, Xinhua said.

    SGM said it has invested 7.5 billion yuan ($1.1 billion) for the new production line, which has been under construction since January 2015, the news agency reported. It will manufacture a new generation of GM Chevrolet Equinox SUVs.

    The plant generated revenue of nearly 23 billion yuan ($3.4 billion) in the first nine months of this year, Xinhua said.

    GM’s China chief Matt Tsien told a press conference in March that Wuhan plant was operating at maximum utilization, and a planned second phase is being added there that will double capacity.

    He said that sport-utility vehicles, multi-purpose vehicles and luxury cars will continue to be hot segments in China going forward, with SUVs and MPVs accounting for 40 percent of firm’s overall China growth to 2020.

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  • China’s Geely shows global ambitions, launching new compact SUV

    China’s Geely shows global ambitions, launching new compact SUV

    Chinese automaker Geely, the owner of Volvo cars, showed off the first model of its new Lynk & Co brand in Germany on Thursday, a compact SUV aimed at taking on the likes of BMW and Mercedes-Benz, as well as ride-hailing service Uber, across the world.

    The Lynk, made in China, will go on sale at home in 2017, followed by Europe and the United States in 2018, and marks one of the first attempts by a Chinese carmaker to create a global brand that makes use of European design and technology know-how.

    Chinese companies have been snapping up cutting-edge German technology to push upmarket and gain a global footprint. This year alone, Chinese home appliances maker Midea has agreed to buy German robotics firm Kuka and Fujian Grand Chip Investment Fund LP is taking over semiconductor equipment maker Aixtron.

    Long seen as a cheap, no-frills brand in China and unheard of in Europe, Zhejiang Geely Holding Group purchased struggling Swedish carmaker Volvo from Ford in 2010 to help it leapfrog a decade of research and development.

    While Volvo will continue to focus on premium vehicles, Lynk is an attempt to grab a slice of the mid market. It will initially take on foreign carmakers’ joint ventures in China, but – as shown by the global launch in Berlin – it also aims to challenge the world’s biggest automakers in their own markets.

    ‘SMARTPHONE ON WHEELS’

    At the launch of the ’01’ model at a former railway station in Berlin that now frequently hosts start-up conventions, Alain Visser, senior vice president at Lynk & Co, described the SUV as “our first smartphone on wheels.”

    It is targeting tech-savvy consumers that may have prioritized flexibility over car ownership in the past. “We are looking very much at millennial consumers all over the world who are very much concentrated around bigger cities,” he said.

    Each car will be permanently connected to the Internet and have a “share” button, enabling owners to rent out their car to other motorists via a smartphone app.

    “That becomes a source of income, which some of the consumers may use, a bit like an Airbnb vehicle,” said Visser, referring to the home rental company.

    Lynk has more models in its line-up, which the carmaker plans to launch over the next 3-5 years, but Visser declined to give details on body styles or launch dates apart from the name of the next car: ’02’.

    Once the full line-up is launched, Lynk aims to sell more than 500,000 vehicles a year by 2021, he said.

    EUROPEAN KNOW-HOW

    Geely’s design has been refined by British designer Peter Horbury, who headed up design at Volvo in the 1990s and oversaw it for Jaguar, Aston Martin and Ford’s other brands from 2002.

    In doing so, Geely is upping the competitive pressure on established global carmakers, which have long accused Chinese rivals of merely ripping off their designs.

    Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), for example, has sued China’s Jiangling Motor after it released the Landwind X7 SUV in 2014, a car that JLR says copies its Land Rover Evoque while costing around the third of a price.

    The car will be a hybrid powered by a 1.5-litre three cylinder petrol engine combined with a lithium-ion battery and electric motor, and will be the first based on the Complex Modular Architecture platform developed by Geely and Volvo.

    Mercedes-owner Daimler and BMW are also investing heavily in hybrid vehicles and will be watching closely to see how the ’01’ fares with European consumers.

    Geely said the car would be priced competitively and said it would be fixed across all markets, but declined to give details. It plans to keep down costs by selling the car online only and limiting the number of configurations available.

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  • Goodyear Indonesia eyes SUV market with new tire

    Goodyear Indonesia eyes SUV market with new tire

    Publicly listed tire maker Goodyear Indonesia (GDYR) is eyeing a bigger share of the country’s growing sports utility vehicle (SUV) market by introducing a new midsize SUV tire.

    The new product, called Wrangler TripleMax, will be launched in November. It is expected to double the size of the company’s SUV market to around 10 percent in 2017, up from the current 5 to 6 percent.

    “The SUV has become a sexy market for us as it has seen a constant growth within the Asia-Pacific region in recent years, including in Indonesia,” Arfianti Puspitarini, Goodyear Indonesia’s consumer product and trade marketing manager, said during the Gaikindo Indonesia International Auto Show (GIIAS) in Tangerang, Banten, last week.

    Puspitarini even said that SUV cars “were like a second living room”, especially for people living in big cities like Jakarta.

    Sales of SUV cars, such as Daihatsu Terios, Mitsubishi Pajero Sports and Toyota Fortuner, increased 15.28 percent year-on-year to 131,966 units throughout 2015.

    Their share accounted for 13 percent of overall car sales of around 1.01 million units last year, according to the Association of Indonesian Automotive Manufacturers (Gaikindo). Entering 2016, the SUV segment made up 22.1 percent of total car sales of 267,228 units in the first quarter.

    Goodyear claims that the Wrangler TripleMax, which was also launched in Thailand and the Philippines last month, would optimize a car’s braking system, with a two-meter shorter braking distance compared to competitors in the midsize SUV segment.

    Goodyear Indonesia sales and marketing director Yedi Yunadi Sondy said the new product would fill in the market of the company’s previous product, the Wrangler HP All Weather, which was sold for between Rp 700,000 (US$53.35) to Rp 1.5 million each.

    It sells premium SUV tires as well, with price tags ranging from Rp 1.2 million to Rp 2.2 million each, that cater to high-end vehicles, such as Nissan Terrano or Mazda CX7.

    The company’s first-quarter financial report showed that it booked $40.6 million in revenues, 2.9 percent lower than the first quarter of 2015. More than half of the revenues came from domestic sales, which surged 8.3 percent year-on-year.

    The report also showed that it managed to cut various business costs that led to $629,344 in net profits in the January to March period, overturning the $205,864 of net losses that it posted in the same period last year.

    During a May interview in Jakarta, Goodyear Indonesia corporate secretary Wicaksono Soebroto said the company had decided not to expand to other export markets this year.

    On the contrary, it plans to strengthen its domestic market following a slight recovery in the country’s economy and the government’s goal to boost infrastructure projects nationwide.

    “Those infrastructure projects certainly need lots of trucks [to transport building materials]. We can also provide more tires for them,” said Goodyear Indonesia managing director Allan Loi.

    Its overseas markets currently consist of those in Southeast Asia, Oceania and in other countries. It suffered from a 78.39 percent plunge in annual sales in Oceania last year, mainly because of an 80.13 percent decline in Australia.

    At present, Goodyear has 89 outlets in 27 provinces across the country, with 26 outlets located in the Greater Jakarta area.

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  • Mitsubishi Motors reveals XM Concept crossover SUV in Indonesia

    Mitsubishi Motors reveals XM Concept crossover SUV in Indonesia

    Mitsubishi Motors Corp. on Thursday revealed its new XM Concept crossover at the Gaikindo Indonesia International Auto Show.

    The XM Concept denotes X for crossover and M for multipurpose vehicle (MPV). Mitsubishi considers the vehicle a combination of the power, design and utility of a SUV with the spaciousness and comfort of an MPV.

    The model will enter production at the company’s new plant in Indonesia in 2017. It will be a rival of best-selling models such as the Toyota Avanza, Daihatsu Xenia, Suzuki Ertiga and Honda Mobilio.

    Mitsubishi Executive Vice President Kozo Shiraji said about 60 percent of vehicle demand in Indonesia was for MPVs. The automaker believed this “will increase rapidly.”

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  • Nissan begins X-Trail Hybrid SUV production in Thailand

    Nissan begins X-Trail Hybrid SUV production in Thailand

    Nissan Motor has started manufacturing and selling its X-Trail Hybrid in Thailand, hoping to tap demand among the country’s well-heeled customers.

    The Japanese automaker began churning out the sport utility vehicle in October at a factory in the central province of Samut Prakarn, expecting to deliver the first locally produced batch this month.

    Nissan aims to sell 5,000 units in Thailand in 2016. With retail prices starting at 1.24 million baht ($35,000), the company plans to tout its relative affordability. Nissan expects the model to account for 60% of X-Trail series sales in Thailand, where luxury vehicles continue to draw solid demand despite slumping new-auto sales.

    The company is producing the hybrid overseas for the first time, as it previously was shipped from Japan. Nissan hopes Thailand will serve as a hub to export the vehicle to Southeast Asia.

    Toyota Motor and Honda Motor also produce and sell hybrids locally: the Camry and the Accord, respectively.

  • Honda Thailand to Unveil New-Gen CUV Prototype

    Honda Thailand to Unveil New-Gen CUV Prototype

    Honda Thailand’s BR-V prototype, a new-generation CUV, will make its world premiere at the upcoming Gaikindo Indonesian International Auto Show.

    The BR-V (Bold Runabout Vehicle), on display at the Aug. 20-30 event in Tangerang, Indonesia, features a solid exterior design with high ground clearance, large alloy wheels and sleek roof rails. It seats seven in a 3-row configuration.

    The BR-V is powered by a 1.5L gasoline engine with two advanced transmissions available.

    Honda R&D Asia Pacific in Thailand developed the new vehicle for the Asian market.

  • Hyundai Grand i10X launched

    Hyundai Grand i10X launched

    The population of pseudo SUVs has risen over the past few years. While Fiat, Volkswagen and Toyota have reworked hatchbacks of their own, Hyundai played their cards right by launching the i20 Active around the time waiting periods for the Elite i20 started rising. Now, Hyundai has just launched the Hyundai Grand i10X in Indonesia, in order to capitalize on what seems to be a global trend.

    The car gets black plastic cladding around the wheel arches, side skirts and bumpers, day time running LEDs along the fog lamp housing, a faux skid plate, new alloy wheels, and black sash tape on the C pillar among other alterations. Mechanically, the car gets no changes.

    Hyundai India has not stated any plans to launch this model. The South Korean automaker already sells around 8,500 units of the Grand i10 in India every month. While a new product launch could be considered at a later stage, features such as the LED DRLs may be tempting for some Indian buyers.

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