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$4k Renault compared to Tesla Model 3
- nicolashahn 9y agoI wonder which will make more money, the cheap car sold by the millions or the (relatively) expensive car sold by the thousands.
- curiousgal 9y agoJudging by China's economy, I think it's a volume game.
- yitchelle 9y agoIn China, it is almost both. Some of the highest sellers are BWM, Jaguars and Mercedes.
- Kluny 9y agoHistorically, it's always been the cheap cars that win. Honda civics, toyota corolla, dodge k-cars, vw beetles, mk1 golfs.
- touristtam 9y agoI completely disagree; Renault when buying Dacia, bought a company capable to produce a compact car at a ridiculously low price on an industrial platform that was proven (Clio) and on a market segment that is the bread and butter of all major European car manufacturer. However the same car was sold at almost twice the price within the EU single market as it was outside it. Before that, you had the experience of FIAT with a single platform produced in Europe (FIAT Uno) and South America (Fiat Palio). It was a commercial success for the company. However, the price for the Palio was lower than the Uno, as it was targetting developing market. The more mature market are not benefiting from technological development from those cars, as they are based on proven platform (read already paid for), or from the price reduction, as the competition is locked in place, and an aggressive price politic might actually be detrimental to the product perception. This is without even mentioning the cartel like behaviour or European car manufacturer.
- netgusto 9y agoI think you miss the point of the article, which is about Renault finding in India an opportunity to be as disruptive as Tesla is in the First World, with diametrally opposed products, but similar appeal to their respective markets by proposing an affordable yet radically new product.
- uniformlyrandom 9y agoBut there is nothing new about cheap small under-powered cars. [We've had them since 1950s](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trabant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trabant).
- zwieback 9y agoThey mention using a single Indian supplier and designing for that supplier as an advantage. Where I work we wouldn't be allowed to do that - always want at least two different suppliers so we don't put ourselves at risk. Hope it works out for them - seems like a fun little car.
- abawany 9y agoAlso, the Takata airbag debacle affecting a variety of automakers but primarily Honda (1) is an example of how using a single supplier and developing relationships can be a bad plan. 1: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-honda-results-idUSKCN0Y40UD https://www.reuters.com/article/us-honda-results-idUSKCN0Y40...
- hencq 9y agoWhere I work we have the same policy. However, with that come its own problems. For one, you introduce more variance and complexity this way. There's actually a lot to be said for having only one supplier. It's not for nothing that Deming advocated for this. See e.g. http://michelbaudin.com/2012/09/17/demings-point-4-of-14-end-the-practice-of-awarding-business-on-the-basis-of-a-price-tag/#single http://michelbaudin.com/2012/09/17/demings-point-4-of-14-end... supplier
- pavel_lishin 9y agoThat ceremony looks monstrously tiring to an introverted westerner like me. I don't want to cut a cake and watch a priest bless my car; I want to walk onto a lot, look over the car I pre-selected online to make sure it's the right one, and then give someone some money and drive away. I'm also wondering how long that friendly attitude - and the traveling pop-up repair program - will last. Once everyone wants one of these, you no longer have to cajole people.
- ianai 9y agoIt sounded similarly uncomfortable to me. But you and I are not Indians living in India. If I had grown up there I might be more comfortable with that tradition.
- zzalpha 9y agoThat ceremony looks monstrously tiring to an introverted westerner like me. Well, I guess it's a good thing the article isn't about westerners, let alone introverts...
- dmode 9y agoIt's pretty common in India to take your new car to the temple and get it blessed.
- vacri 9y agoInteresting that in the photos, the priest is the least 'dressed-up' of all of them.
- lazy12340987 9y agoThat's because, he definitely is not a priest, he is most likely an employee at the dealership. Im an Indian, that guying doing the puja doesnot resemble a Pujari (priest), Hindu pujari's have a very traditional dressing style. I feel that the writer was either unaware or just adding masala(spicing up) to his article by claiming him to be a priest.
- 9y ago
- 5_minutes 9y agoI was just watching on ViceLand an episode about the Indian (non-existent) sewage system. Millions of people there have no sanitation facilities and deficate anywhere, where possible. And are living of a few dollars a month. It's really worthwhile watching, btw. So talking about "quality cars" for $4000 here seems totally surreal. And that that would be disruptive is even more of a strange observation. The author sure has an interesting story to tell, but the conclusions, title etc of the article shows of actual lacking good journalism/storytelling.
- sxates 9y agoshould 'fornicate' be 'defecate'?
- 5_minutes 9y agoRight, I'm not a native speaker :) I'll update it thanks.
- rokhayakebe 9y agoPlease keep in mind India has one of the, if not the, largest middle class population in the world.
- 5_minutes 9y agoCan you verify that with some sources/stats? And what's your definition of a "middle class" in India?
- sien 9y agoPresumably using the definition of spending $4 to $6 a day. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/11/6-surprising-facts-about-india-s-exploding-middle-class/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/11/6-surprising-facts-ab... However, there are other estimations around that make India's middle class much smaller, say ~25M http://www.business-standard.com/article/current-affairs/indian-middle-class-is-24-million-not-264-million-credit-suisse-115102900181_1.html http://www.business-standard.com/article/current-affairs/ind...
- dsfyu404ed 9y ago>In the US, everything about the car ownership experience — from research to negotiation to delivery to service — has been utterly and depressingly commoditized Clearly this guy hasn't walked into a Chrysler dealer and asked "How much horsepower can I get with four doors?"
- jefb 9y agoWhat Is Disruption, Anyway? ... In India, where the average wage remains a fraction of those in the first world, it starts with an affordable car that isn’t a complete piece of junk. 5 Paragraphs later: It would be the same price as the sector-leading Maruti Suzuki, but with more space. It would include a 7” infotainment system with a touchscreen. It would have real ground clearance. It would resemble a smaller version of Renault’s wildly popular Duster SUV. New sexy features don't make something disruptive. Sure, it may pan out to be a popular vehicle, but disruptive? because it has infotainment?... spare us.
- 5_minutes 9y agoRight yes, this whole article is not good journalism. It is an interesthing thing to write about, but the voice here is wrong.
- nobodyorother 9y agoThe point of the article is that disruption depends on market. Infotainment in India might be like the "not-getting-beaten-up-for-overbooking" of United.
- harigov 9y agoYeah, I don't understand how this is disruptive. Except for few improvements, this sounds very much like other cars in the market. The delivery process full of rituals is a standard practise in India, so that doesn't make Renault any different either.
- ensiferum 9y agoWhy can't take they make a car like this for the European market? Not everybody wants to spend +20k € on a car. Somehow I feel this would probably cost +10k in Europe so what gives?
- phinnaeus 9y agoSafety regulations.
- ceejayoz 9y agoEurope doesn't permit deathtraps to be sold. This car lacks airbags, and I'd imagine a variety of other safety features to boot.
- ju-st 9y agothere are a lot of safe cars available in Germany below 10k€
- xutopia 9y agoLook at crash test videos posted above. We have regulations in place where they do not.
- calafrax 9y agoDo you have used cars in Europe? The US is flooded with used cars and you can get something much better than this for $4000.
- ensiferum 9y agoDepends where you live. For example in Finland with high tax on cars for 4000€ you can get a -00 Toyota Corolla with 250k km on it.
- rwmj 9y agoThis is something I've always wondered, why are even the cheapest cars (in the Western world) so expensive? Isn't it possible to make a new car under ~ $10,000?
- ceejayoz 9y agoEmissions and safety standards play a huge role, I'd imagine. It's $3-5k to replace airbags after an accident, for example. The Kwid lacks them entirely.
- abawany 9y agoLooking at the video of the Nissan Tsuru vs. Versa posted above, it seems to me that an airbag might not have been much help in the Tsuru - the passenger compartment in the Tsuru just plain collapsed whereas the Versa's remained whole.
- ceejayoz 9y agoYeah, I'd imagine the lack of airbags is just the start of a very, very long list of safety issues.
- danhak 9y agoSafety requirements. Here's a crash test between a 2015 Nissan Tsuru, the least expensive sedan sold by Nissan in Mexico, and a 2016 Nissan Versa, the least expensive sedan sold by Nissan in the United States. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85OysZ_4lp0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85OysZ_4lp0
- unethical_ban 9y agoPut a 2017 Nissan Versa against a 2017 Harley Davidson. They're both allowed on the road. I've wondered if less safe vehicles (lighter, cheaper, smaller) could be made and required NOT to be on high speed roadways (above 45mph, freeways, etc.), or just have the US admit their regs are too strenuous.
- smcg 9y agoOne of the reasons why the Renault Kwid is $4000 is because, well, it uses cheap materials, and with that comes a very bad safety rating. This is enabled by India's nearly non-existent car safety regulations. Everything has a "price".
- Kluny 9y agoA car is a tool that a poor family can use to multiply their effectiveness and pull themselves out of poverty. Lots of people are willing to gamble their safety for the chance. edit: plus, it can hardly be worse than 6 children in a moped... http://www.nydailynews.com/news/overloaded-vehicles-gallery-1.1397465?pmSlide=1.1397459 http://www.nydailynews.com/news/overloaded-vehicles-gallery-...
- pwython 9y agoFor those in that area that can't afford a safe, reliable car, perhaps it's a step up from a motorbike though. Not to mention, it allows for more passengers in the death trap.
- Retric 9y agoDepends on top speed. If you moped never breaks 25mph then a car doing 50mph could easily be less safe. It's also much more dangerous to people around you.
- NoPiece 9y agoThe most reliable mopeds still crash and get hit. Fatalities per mile are greater bicycles and motorcycles than cars.
- gorkonsine 9y agoWhere? If you're in a place where everyone drives a moped or bicycle and cars are rare, then mopeds are a lot safer. Stick the moped in traffic surrounded by clueless SUV drivers and now the moped is a death-trap. Go to a place where everyone rides a bicycle and there's no cars and I guarantee the fatality-per-mile rate is ridiculously low. See downtown Copenhagen for example.
- yitchelle 9y agoThat delivery ceremony is amazing. Are the salaries so low in India that the car dealers can afford to have such a ceremony for every new car delivery?
- kinkrtyavimoodh 9y agoKeep in mind that this is an article written by an American seemingly enamored by something in India, and like most write-ups of such kind, it romanticizes whatever happens in India while being over-critical of whatever happens back at home. As an Indian who currently lives in the US and has a much more 'level' view of both places, this fetishization is quite frustrating. That being said, the ceremony looks a little too elaborate compared to what typically happens—the car is covered in flowers, and the dealership guy ceremoniously hands over a symbolic oversized key to the buyer. Pooja may or may not happen.
- buserror 9y agoAlso he rubbishes quite a bit what happens in the rest of the world (or is it US only). I know that in the UK, I bought a new BMW and we came in, my wife got flowers, the car was covered and she got to pull it off to 'reveal' it, and the vendor took a good 1/2 hour explaining all the gadgets etc. So no flowers on the car and priest onboard, but definitely 'ceremonious' enough.
- kinkrtyavimoodh 9y agoPlus the priest thing is very cultural and nothing to do with cars in specific. A lot of Indians typically do ritualistic ceremonies (pooja) for any slightly major life event. And for most Indians buying a car qualifies (even the cheapest car is a fundamentally aspirational purchase for the lower and the lower middle class). I dunno if it's standard in the US, but Indians typically also distribute sweets to friends and neighbors to 'celebrate' the purchase.
- krishicks 9y agoCrash test results: 0 stars https://youtu.be/jePu-6TxypI https://youtu.be/jePu-6TxypI Reminds me of the Tata Nano (also 0 stars): https://youtu.be/buMXtGoHHIg https://youtu.be/buMXtGoHHIg
- rokhayakebe 9y agoMotorcycle Crash Test Results? Yet still a great way for some to commute.
- rhcom2 9y agoJesus, the steering wheel in both of the videos comes right at the drivers chest. Also Volkswagen was selling the Polo in India without airbags??
- abawany 9y agoI have a hard time understanding why 60+ years of knowledge about safety cells is ignored in this design-to-cost. I don't know how much more the cost of this car would have been in materials if reasonable attention had been paid to maintaining the integrity of the passenger compartment.
- gozur88 9y agoI imagine if they could make a $4k car that's as safe as what you find in the US and Europe they would be sold in the US and Europe.
- abawany 9y agoI have a hard time imagining that 6k of the remaining cost (a basic car in the US can be had at $10k) would be because of a decent safety standard. I am curious to know how much more than $4k this Renault would be if they had spent a little time designing a safer passenger cell.
- LoSboccacc 9y agoDon't airbag alone cost 1k each? Also steel anti intrusion bars costs, increase weight, which requires a larger engine etc.
- justin66 9y ago"How are we going to get anyone to read this article we wrote about a boring, shitty car? I know, gratuitous Tesla comparisons!"
- icantdrive55 9y ago1. Why can't an American company build a bare boned vechicle? 2. I honestly don't quite get it. 3. Yes there's minimum wage, and safety standards. (I've given up on wage. Let's make things here at mimimum wage. At this point, wage doesn't matter, plus most of the jobs would be just monitoring a robot. The corporate structure would be disruptive. There would be no executives. And managers would have to earn that title.) 4. America needs a 80's Toyota. Four banger. Manual, and automatic. The Powertrain should be guaranteed for 200,000 miles. Use thicker clutch plates. Just do it. The engine should be a reverse engineered 22R. I can guarantee that engine is good for 200,000 easily. It's bullet proof. A bare boned vechicle, with one computer. Maybe a computer that a owner could get into? No electric anything. One cup holder. A USB you plug your phone into. Just a people mover. 5. A under $5 grand vechicle. I've been looking for a new car, and it literally makes me sick. I feel worse just getting closer to the dealerships, which are all owned by one guy. Meaning no real competition. Besides the game of buying a new/used vechicle; I am not liking what I'm seeing, and the prices are outragious. I will be shocked if any of these new vechicles(under $60 grand) ever become collectable. The exception might be the Ford F-150, but it's still overpriced, and not practical for the person I'm buying for. 6. Rant over.
- kn0where 9y agoOn the plus side, given India's traffic, maybe this criminally-unsafe car will rarely drive fast enough to be dangerous?
- StreamBright 9y agoIs a cheap car what we call disruption in 2017, really? We know that cars do not scale, look at LA traffic. Seems like a pretty bad idea to replicate the same problems to the 3rd world.
- snambi 9y agoCars for India is really stupid idea, where most people keep their cars parked for 99.99% of the time.
- SmellyGeekBoy 9y agoIs this not the case in most places?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- cakedoggie 9y agoIt is literally disruption. Disruption to the city, to pedestrians and cyclists, to traffic, to well flowing movement (not sure that applies to Indian cities).
- snambi 9y agoclickbait.
- 5_minutes 9y agoThere is surely something to be said about Renault as a company brand's responsability and ethics here.
- apo 9y agoThis doesn't sound like marketplace disruption as described by Christensen. Under his model, the marketplace disruptor attacks from the bottom. The challenging product is demonstrably, objectively worse in one or more ways than the incumbent. If introduced into the US, the Kwid would indeed be a marketplace disruptor. But in India, where the article itself points out that relatively few cars are driven, the Kwid is a luxury item. In this view, neither anything Tesla has offered nor the Kwid should be considered disruptive. They're both vulnerable to a determined, capable incumbent.
- sunbuntu 9y agoThe answer to every question is China and India. China is the worlds leading e-car economy. Who cares about a niche product that could not be sold in any other market. China will dominate the e-car market. Hint: They will not allow foreigns into China
- thinkloop 9y agoSo painful to read this article. How did it get on the front page? Is it that it's funny how confidently the author has no idea what "disrupt" means? Summary: new car introduced at same price as current leading car in category, but with a bit more room and slightly nicer, and they give you cake when you pick it up. Literally, that's the whole article.
- alexchantavy 9y agoFor the below paragraphs alone I think this article is more than deserving of the front page: > Short of a supercar delivery, I have never witnessed such time and effort spent on a customer. Actually, that’s the jaded American in me talking. Power Renault Kattupakkam didn’t spend this time and effort. They devoted it. They invested it, in a way merely given lip service during the sales training most American salespeople allegedly get, and which clearly isn't building goodwill with customers. > In the US, everything about the car ownership experience — from research to negotiation to delivery to service — has been utterly and depressingly commoditized. Any positive emotional relationship between sellers and buyers has been sacrificed on the altar of efficiency. With rare exceptions — generally limited to the ultra high-end — the American buying experience is a circle of resentment. It’s I want your time vs. I don’t have much time. I'm tired of feeling jaded about the American car buying experience so hearing something like this is very refreshing.
- hosh 9y agoIt is so weird seeing all these comments focused on price, perceived lack of quality, or how the article is link bait. The most important comparison between that $4000 car and Tesla is in the sales model, the delivery, and what happens after. I was fascinated by the priest coming in to conduct puja as part of ceremonially handing the car over to the new owners. While it probably won't fly in America, it is this blending of modern and traditional that is lacking when we commoditized everything.
- jccooper 9y agoFunny how it starts off making fun of clickbait mills name-dropping Tesla, and then proceeds to do the exact same thing.
- dgudkov 9y agoThis article should be viewed not from a point of technology disruption, but from a point of marketing disruption. The correct analogy would be with Lexus rather than Tesla (apparently the latter was brought in purely for extra clickbaitness). Lexus offered no technical innovation, however gained supply chain optimizations allowed Toyota to launch a car that offered significantly more value per money then it was common for the market at that time. A flavor of exclusivity together with non-exclusive price tag made Lexus a huge marketing success. So is the Kwid marketing disruption? Could be. If it's a right product for the right market - why not? Is the parallel with Tesla relevant? Absolutely not, because Tesla is known first of all as a technology break-through. Of course, good marketing & PR played huge role for the Tesla's success, but it's still secondary. All in all, the article is about a successful product/market fit case. It has nothing to do with technology advances.
- hnnsj 9y agoI confessed I skimmed most of the article, but am I fair if I say that it makes the point that electrification is just a nice-to-have feature for rich western hipsters? And nowhere does it raise the issue of the global environmental issues if millions and millions of additional combustion engines? At least there's cake...
- MBlume 9y agoI think this article would be substantially improved by removal of references to Tesla or "disruption". The stuff about the Renault is interesting, but all the "what these unthinking Musk fanboys don't realize..." is obnoxious and doesn't add anything to the article.
- jayeshsalvi 9y agoWhy comparision with Model 3? It's not electric. The blogger seems to have only anti-tesla agenda.
- renaudg 9y agoAnyone else feeling slightly uneasy with the exciting and "disruptive" plan of ushering a population of 1.3 billion into the glorious era of the fossil-fuelled car ? Seems exactly what the world needs right now.
- johnm1019 9y agoThe value created by access to a car they can afford will advance both India and the world to the next level of health, abundance, and technology. Just as the car and the ICE advanced so many other places of the world from the horse cart. With that I believe will come the education and technology needed to push us past ICEs and further into the future.
- Al-Khwarizmi 9y agoYeah, except that... (1) when the car and the ICE advanced so many other places of the world, we didn't have alternative technologies. Now we do, (2) climate change is already underway, with mid-term scenarios ranging from very worrying to catastrophic, (3) the population densities and city sizes in those places of the world where ICE cars saw a boom in the last century were nowhere near that of India. A car-centric model in cities over 10M population is a disaster, (4) for this reason the most comparable example would be China, who is experiencing massive pollution problems in cities, and has already reacted with traffic-restricting laws and the rapid construction of metropolitan mass-transit networks and a high-speed rail network. I get the argument that it's unfair for the West to deny to others what we already experimented in the past, but I really don't think it's in the interest of India (even ignoring global factors like climate change) to become a massively polluting car-centric society. We know better now, the way forward is not to reenact the West's 80s, it's to take advantage of not having made the West's errors to skip that and embrace newer tech and trends directly (just as landlines were skipped in so many countries).
- IslaDeEncanta 9y agoThe efficiency of the free market at work.
- deleted 9y ago
- dsego 9y agoFunny, yugo cost that much in the USA 30 years ago. Btw, yugo was an icon, this is shite.
- babesh 9y agoWhy don’t you just limit the speed of the car to how much impact it can take without seriously injuring the passéngers and possibly pedestrians? That car can’t take a 40mph impact but maybe it can take a 25mph one?
- freehunter 9y agoBut other cars aren’t limited to this speed. If I hit a car at 25 mph it might be safe, but if I hit it at 100mph that’s a different story. That other car has no input on how fast I hit it.
- blunte 9y agoThe problem of car safety isn't solved by the Renault driver driving slowly. The risk is still significant when the speeding large truck fails to stop/yield (is that even a concept?) and plows into the car. Meanwhile, look at all the energy (and human time) being put into selling one car, but the streets and surrounding areas are covered in trash and worse. I would much rather see these car salespeople doing what "The Ugly Indian" (see Facebook for group) is doing - cleaning up and decorating disgusting areas and teaching people by example how not to trash their home environments.
- walrus01 9y agoOne thing that is not mentioned in the article at all, other than the existence of scooters, is that specifically a huge number of them are 2-stroke gasoline engines which are incredibly polluting. It's worth having a discussion about the environmental implications of a growing middle class in south asia buying cars, but at least if scooters are replaced with cars such as this on a 1:1 basis, the air will be a LOT cleaner. The air in Lahore or New Delhi on a typical day is a blue-gray haze full of two stroke engine exhaust. The typical two stroke scooter pollutes more than a giant american gas guzzling SUV from 20 years ago.
- Tepix 9y ago> The typical two stroke scooter pollutes more than a giant american gas guzzling SUV from 20 years ago. Citation needed.
- walrus01 9y agohttps://phys.org/news/2014-05-two-stroke-scooters-super-polluters.html https://phys.org/news/2014-05-two-stroke-scooters-super-poll... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1247506/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1247506/ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/10834679/Scooters-pollute-more-than-lorries.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/1083467...
- zubairq 9y agoTo say that this is unsafe is incorrect. It would be unsafe in the west compared to other cars, but in India compared to other cars and motorbikes that riders have as an option the Renault actually INCREASES safety dramatically
- kerbalspacepro 9y agoThey increase safety in the short-term. As the number of automobiles goes up, they become more dangerous. Essentially, safety = mass of your car / average mass of collisionable vehicles + C, where C is a constant that describes how safe the car would be driving the road alone The safest world is one where you have a tank and everybody else walks.
- EngineerBetter 9y agoKinda off-topic: I own a Renault Zoe, which is an EV hatchback that you can get second-hand for about £4k, and also a Tesla Model X 90D. People get far too excited by Tesla's brand, when there are really competitive EVs out there. Feel free to AMA about EVs or how mine compare.
- jpkeisala 9y agoHow is the charging time and mileage on Zoe vs. Model X?
- masklinn 9y agoThe Zoes have either 22kWh or 41kWh battery packs (for respectively 150 and 250 miles NDEC, so an effective ~115 and 190 miles). Xs have 90kWh battery packs. As with Teslas, charging time depends on the charger's powerand whether you want 80% or 100%. Zoes support chargers up to 43kW and home chargers up to 22kW ("Wallbox"), Tesla's superchargers are 120kW and home chargers are up to 19.2kW (though IIRC that requires the $k High Amperage Charger Upgrade)
- EngineerBetter 9y agoAt home we have a 7kW charger (the most we could get without having to change either the main fuseboard in the house, or have stuff dug up). That gives the Zoe a charge-time of just over three hours (as we have a 22kWh battery) versus over 13 hours for the Model X. That's 35 miles of charge an hour for the Zoe, and 21 miles of charge an hour for the Model X. The Zoe can fast-charge at up to 43kW on motorway service stations, whilst the Model X and charge at 120kW. In the UK there are way more locations with fast-chargers the Zoe can use than there are Tesla superchargers.
- codeulike 9y agoWhats the khw on the zoe?
- masklinn 9y agoDo you mean kWh, the battery's capacity? Either 22 or 41.
- thewhitetulip 9y agoI am still trying to understand how a 0 rating crash test car is being compared with one of the safest car? Am I missing something? Is this a sarcastic post?
- gambiting 9y agoAll the article is telling me is that American dealership experience must be incredibly shitty. We bought a brand new VW Polo here in the UK(and Polo is the cheapest VW car you can buy here), on the delivery day it was waiting for us in the dealership wrapped in ribbons, my partner got a massive bouquet of flowers, there were cards saying "happy new car day <partner's name>", and two sales assistants spent a lot of time with us showing us every bit of the car. That sounds pretty similar to the experience described in the article, minus the religious parts.
- mdekkers 9y agoThe only thing a Renault will disrupt is the reliability of your transportation, and your bank account when you go for repairs. As a current Renault owner I have been forced to become an expert in automotive technology.
- vivekd 9y agoSo wait, this means that if it weren't for safety and emission standards I'd be able to go out and buy a new car for 4000 dollars and a used car for a tiny fraction of that? I get that others want safety, but for me that's not as important as avoiding debt. Shouldn't I have the right to make that choice on my own?
- wilg 9y agoTo answer your first question: no. And as for the second, mostly no, unless you are purchasing a car that only kills or injures yourself when you get into a crash and also the emissions only go into your house and stay there.
- GFischer 9y agoThe emissions on a Kwid are far lower than those on an American car. And the Kwid would probably injure yourself and anyone driving with you... but, there's a version with ABS and Airbags, so the GP has a point. https://auto.ndtv.com/news/renault-kwid-1-litre-variant-to-come-with-abs-dual-airbags-as-standard-1257346 https://auto.ndtv.com/news/renault-kwid-1-litre-variant-to-c... Edit: by the way, I owned a Maruti Alto, and now own a Renault Twingo. I'd say it's surprisingly safe.
- joekrill 9y ago> Ask the clickbait mills and the sheep who retweet them... Surely the irony must be intentional.
- dalbasal 9y agoI don't get what this article is trying to say. “In India,” he said, “you cannot look or be strange. Choosing a new entrant is a risk. You have to be careful with your money. A new product must be different.” Isn't this contradicting itself? What I understood from this article is (1) Renault are selling the cheapest possible standard looking car and (2) They do localized, ritualistic sales & delivery which appeals to their buyers. Seems to me that this is a story about a car that isn't trying to disrupt anything or be any more radical than absolutely necessary to meet its price/cost goals. It is trying to bring standard low cost Renaults to India. The article mentions the Tata Nano, a more radical low cost concept. It could also have mentioned the Twizy, Renault's current attempt at a tiny lower cost car radically different from other models. Both of these stretch the standard definition of "car" and you might call them disruption attempts. The Kwid is explicitley trying to do the opposite. The current suite of car types (budget hatchback, family sedan, SUV..) is fairly stable. This is probably because use cases have remained the same, the technology has remained similar & underlying economic factors of production haven't changed much. Two things could change that: EV technology & AV technology, especially AV. For example, if most passenger cars are autonomous taxis, we might see more specialized designs. Slow, single seaters for urban travel. Larger comfort vehicles for longer distance travel.. etc. That would be disruptive.
- mikepurvis 9y agoNote that the author is Alex Roy of Cannonball fame. https://www.wired.com/2007/10/ff-cannonballrun/ https://www.wired.com/2007/10/ff-cannonballrun/
- dingo_bat 9y agoI think the kwid is not going to disrupt much in India. I'm in India and if I want to buy a car and I'm not going to consider the kwid. It looks too cheap and small. If they would have made it a 2 seater I'd have thought about it.
- anonu 9y ago> You couldn’t give a Model 3 away in Chennai or Bangalore. From wheel size to suspension to charging to structural integrity, no Tesla would survive, at any price. They’re not designed to. How do you know?
- Rzor 9y agoIn Brazil the Kwid will be sold for 10kUSD, even worse than India.