Ups and Downs in the Market
The respective market shares of Maruti Suzuki and Hyundai have come down as those of Mahindra and Tata Motors show an upward trend. In fact, Hyundai have slipped from the number two position held by them for many years and are now offering discounts on quite a few models. It is the Creta that keeps flying high sales-wise as the number one sport utility vehicle (SUV) in the country.
The sales of electric vehicles (EV) are not growing as expected because they do not deliver the claimed range. Moreover, once an electric car becomes old, the range will only come down and the re-sale value will be close to nothing since the cost of the battery constitutes nearly half the price of an EV. When an EV owner boasts of how much they are saving on fuel costs as compared to a petrol or a diesel car, the following reality check may come in useful. Taking into consideration the entire life-cycle of the car, the running cost of a diesel car would be much lower as compared to an EV because when the owner goes to sell the EV, it will have to be sold as scrap; no one is likely to buy an electric car with a dead battery.
We have experienced a few pre-monsoon showers in May and seen most of the roads getting water-logged. On the one side of most city roads there tends to be a divider and a footpath on the other without storm water drains. On the highways where there is a service road with dividers and its level happens to be higher than that of the highway, it leads to the highway getting water-logged. When will our engineers and road designers give due importance to the storm water drainage system? Given the amount of road tax and toll we pay, all roads should have a consistently good surface and there should be no water-logging. It is common knowledge that such accumulated water can give rise to aquaplaning and cause accidents.
EDITOR – ASPI BHATHENA
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