Our nation has witnessed a revolution within mobility in the last few decades. At every crossing of this journey, the meaning of personal mobility has changed to tremendous effect.

Indian consumers once sought personal mobility, simply with the aim of reaching their destinations in short spans. Soon, these consumers were acquainted with a plethora of options, thus painting their aspirations with a new brushstroke — the luxury of ‘choice’. The new-age consumers associate mobility with comfort, style, luxury, and one’s pride. Facilitating these preferences are factors like growth of the economy, rising disposable incomes and an evident change in media consumption.

Synchronous to each of these evolutions, the automobile industry has worked hard to satiate the preferences of consumers, thereby birthing relevant innovations. Delving deep into this statement, we realise that utility vehicles (UVs) are perhaps one of the most attractive products for the Indian consumers.

The concept of UVs gained momentum with the advent of sports utility vehicles (SUVs). These vehicles offered superior capability, traction, and off-road height, thus creating a chatter in the Indian mobility market. At this time, Tata Motors entered the passenger vehicle market with the Tata Sierra in 1991, which was the first SUV designed and produced in India.

Following this game-changing period, the Indian automobile industry soon witnessed a shift in consumption patterns — consumers across India were beginning to incline more towards UVs than cars.

Cut to the present times, this inclination has risen to a strong growth within the UV segment, where Indian consumers are now actively seeking urban UVs — those that offer a striking balance between impressive off-road performance and exceptional daily utility.

Narrowing down the mix of beneficial attributes that UVs have to offer, a varied list of popular consumer demands include better traction, evident family utility, and significant road-ride-height.

Urban UVs often sport a strong pair of wheels that enable ultimate composure and impressive traction control on slippery surfaces. This allows adventure savvy masses to embark on an off-roading trip without fearing lack of control on challenging surfaces.

Beyond the pedigree of wheels, Indians have a soft spot for spending quality time with their families. The high-performing build of urban UVs ensures that these plans are facilitated with utmost comfort, convenience, and spacious interiors for families to experience memorable trips.

The versatility of urban UVs also embraces city conditions where their impressive road-ride-height allows individuals to steer through potholes, speed breakers, and bad traffic routes with relevant ease. All in all, urban UVs host exceptional capability to satiate all popular consumer demands.

In line with global auto trends, the demand for UVs is now outstripping that for cars. In fact, the last fiscal saw over nine lakh SUVs going home to new buyers in India. With this remarkable surge in demand, particularly for compact SUVs, volumes are expected to cross the one million mark in FY-19. Further emphasising on their popularity is the fact that in FY2018, UVs accounted for 28 per cent of total PV sales, as compared to the 25 per cent witnessed in FY2017.

Closer home, Tata Motors witnessed consistent growth in the last few months. The company’s UV segment grew by 119 per cent in the period April-October 2018 (YoY) which in turn resulted in the overall growth of Tata Motors’ passenger vehicle business by 22 per cent in the same period.

Revisiting the necessity of tweaking automobile designs to suit Indian conditions, the UV segment is slowly moving from traditional body-on-frame SUVs to monocoque SUVs. These are single-structured frames that retain the shape and stance of an SUV.

Embracing this infrastructural innovation will furnish vehicles with SUV functionalities, whilst ensuring utmost comfort for urban driving. Looking ahead, we are expectant of Harrier, our first monocoque SUV to be a game-changer in urban UVs segment. Built on the legendary D8 Discovery Sport architecture (Omega Arc), it is all set to herald the urban UV revolution in India.

With the aforementioned trends revving harder on our auto industry tracks, the UV segment as a whole is bound to become even more popular in the near future. In light of the current growth story witnessed by the UV segment, it won’t be long before urban UVs emerge as a specific segment or sub-segment in the UV space.

The writer is President, Passenger Vehicle Business Unit, Tata Motors

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