Maruti Suzuki DZire AMT AGS

15% of new car sales by 2020 likely to have automatic transmission: ICRA

2015 Hyundai Verna 4S (87)automatic transmission

Indian independent and professional investment information and credit rating agency ICRA’s latest study reveales that 15% of new car sales by 2020 likely to have automatic transmission (AT). The reports says that with the Indian market being highly price conscious, it has primarily relied on manual transmission (MT) owing to lower cost (both upfront as well as over lifecycle towards maintenance expense) whereas automatic transmission was generally restricted to premium vehicle catering to a select audience.

Renault KWID 1.0 Easy-R AMT Auto Expo 2016 (3)

Worsening traffic situation in cities is one of the major motivating factors for acceptance of the automatic vehicle, as it considerably reduces the fatigue level of the driver during bumper to bumper traffic movement. Also, the declining cost differential between manual and automatic gearbox, owing to maturity in technology, has resulted in the rising trend of automatic transmission in models offered by OEMs. AT has significantly high penetration in the luxury segment (>Rs 30 lakh) but their penetration in the mass segment is quite low. AT vehicles constitute less than 5% in domestic new vehicle sales (excluding luxury cars) during FY2016 but their share is likely to cross 15% level in the medium term.

Tata Zest 1.3 F-tronic AMT (5)

AT is still considered a luxury feature amongst Indian car buyers, though rising awareness and usage of AT in entry level cars is slowly resulting in improving acceptance/penetration of AT in the domestic PV market. Today, the automatic transmission option is available in entry level cars like Nano and Alto K10, catering to a much wider car audience as compared to the AT option available few years back in the Rs 7 Lakh+ price bracket.

Upcoming cars 2015 Tata Nano AMT

Concerns related to low fuel efficiency in AT are already addressed by the present technology in AT, with some models with continuous variable transmission (CVT), dual clutch transmission (DCT) or even AMT reporting relatively better fuel efficiency than manual transmission variants. However, OEMs have to invest towards consumer awareness to allay these concerns. AMT penetration is likely to increase further as it addresses both concerns of fuel efficiency as well as ownership cost

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