With falling sales and less than one per cent market share in India, Fiat has finally decided to play to its strength, which is its hugely popular diesel engines.

About 36 per cent or one-third of all cars in India either have Fiat engines or run on Fiat technology and hence it wants to repeat the same success with its cars as well.

“Henceforth our focus will be on promoting diesel powered cars,” Fiat India Vice-President, Commercial, Mr Ravi G. Bhatia, told Business Line .

Therefore, it is doling out huge incentives for customers who either want to upgrade or buy diesel cars from its portfolio.

In fact, as part of its promotion it will run through July, customers will be offered diesel cars at the price of petrol variants if they win a contest. For the others, it will offer three months of free diesel and cash incentive for upgrades as well.

A study revealed that on almost all other parameters, the cost of ownership of Linea as well as Punto was at least Rs 15,000-20,000 lower than their nearest competitors.

Before taking the decision to focus more on diesel, Fiat undertook a study to find out how cost effective diesel cars are on Indian roads. The study revealed that one could achieve a break even in 2.5 years if one uses the car 40 km a day.

Earlier, the break even was for 100 km but now with the same mileage, one can achieve a break even in one year, pointed out Mr Bhatia.

Mr Bhatia explained that one of the primary reasons for higher cost of diesel powered cars was the additional components such as turbo jet which is fitted into the diesel engine.

While the diesel variants of Linea and Punto will continue to be promoted, Palio will, however, be made available to customers only on demand.

Mr Bhatia said the car maker was aware of the new challenges in the Indian market and also the fact that its share has not risen beyond one per cent for sometime. He said Fiat wants to take the market share to 2 per cent and hence is working on several fronts to achieve that.

It is focusing on market share in each city and working with Tata Motors to scale up the numbers.

With the car maker receiving flak from customers for not setting up its showrooms, it is now considering a move to set up point of sales instead of full fledged dealerships and has approached existing Tata Motors dealers to set up such centres across the cities.

Fiat has also brought down the price of components so that they become much more affordable for its customers.

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