Ford to launch Endeavour

Though the Indian passenger car market has been a tough nut to crack, Ford Motor India is planning to launch its future products in the mid and high end car segment and will bring out a new Endeavour in early 2007 under its premium SUV category.

Arvind Mathew, managing director and president, Ford India said: "We will be bringing out something new every year. While new Endeavour is on the cards, we are also aiming at two sides of the car market -- Rs 4-5 lakh category and Rs 10-12 lakh premium segment -- for the India market in the next two years.

The mid segment had been the fastest growing at about 21 per cent till last year, when the small car excise incentive came and the market shifted to compact cars. We are betting on these two class of vehicles and will definitely not opt for a cheap car (like M800 or Alto) for the Indian market despite high volumes."

Ford India has increased its sales by 142 per cent in Cotober with 3,336 units and 115 per cent for the first seven months of the fiscal at 22,943 units. However its share in the Indian passenger car market stands at around 3.1 per cent.

Despite the low market share Ford's policy is to concentrate on car segment only. And despite the huge demand in the sub-one ton category vehicles and the recent success Mahindra Utility &Max and Tata Ace, it has ruled out a any one ton pick up trucks from its stable for the Indian market.

"Though the Indian customers has the desire to go for stylish products, the government policy of registering one ton trucks as commercial vehicle rather than private vehicles go against our range of stylish mini-trucks. There is no scope for our range of mini-trucks in India at present," said Mathew

The company had launched Ikon Flair CNG, a dual-fuel variant running both on petrol and compressed natural gas [CNG] on Tuesday at an price of Rs 5.25 lakh (ex showroom Delhi).

Initially the car will be available at available in CNG compliant cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Surat , Baroda and Ahmedabad.Mathew said they have conducted extensive research on alternate fuels and CNG fuel was chosen as its running cost is about one-forth the price of petrol.

Though he added that the company will concentrate on diesel as the alternate to petrol, for its economy and efficiency.

Nearly 70 per cent sales of Ford vehicles in India are of diesel vehicles.

Unlike Tata Motor and its American partner, General Motor, which has changed the engine configuration to take excise benefit, it will not downscale any of its products to tap the excise benefits.

"We will keep customer focus in mind, rather than take any policy centric decisions. Our future products will be quality driven as in the case of our latest offering Fiesta, which has been an astounding success and maintains a sizeable backlog of bookings," Mathew added.

The company contradicted reports of a possible diesel facility in India and ruled out any diesel engine manufacturing saying that it is not feasible at such low volumes and lack of right diesel technology available in India also goes against it.