It is no secret that Indian car market has still not warmed up for automatic cars. One of the reasons for this is the high cost of purchase that comes with the auto tranny equipped cars. One of the major reasons for a high selling price of these cars is that the automatic transmission is offered only with the top of the line variants. Now, popular Korean car maker Hyundai wishes to change this and is working on to soon introduce an automatic transmission option on lower variants of its Verna 1.6 diesel sedan. At the moment, the automatic is available only on the top end variant of this sedan and this latest development at Hyundai is owing to increasing demands for an automatic transmission in the cheaper variants.
It may be noted that Verna is the only car in its segment to offer an automatic ‘box with the diesel version and making this ‘box standard across all the variants will further strengthen the monopoly the Verna diesel automatic enjoys.
Via- ACI
The biggest reason for Automatics not selling is them being offered only as the Top End Petrol Variant. You might argue about Verna D AT but that one has a waiting period of almost 1 year! Offer an Diesel AT with a decent waiting period and watch them fly off the shelves. The Laura 2.0 TDI DSG AT easily outsells the Petrol and the Manual Diesel in a ratio of almost 2:1.
The biggest reason for Automatics not selling is them being offered only as the Top End Petrol Variant. You might argue about Verna D AT but that one has a waiting period of almost 1 year! Offer an Diesel AT with a decent waiting period and watch them fly off the shelves. The Laura 2.0 TDI DSG AT easily outsells the Petrol and the Manual Diesel in a ratio of almost 2:1.