KOCHI: Encouraged by the enthusiasm shown by the customers in Kerala, automobile manufacturers are now betting big on the
Automated Manual Transmission (AMT) Technology. The technology is a hit among the fair sex, according to industry sources. Experts also point out that using this technology cars could be able to achieve 3-5 per cent fuel efficiency more. As statistics suggest that by 2020, about 25-30 per cent of the total passenger cars will have AMT Technology incorporated in them.
“Auto gear shift has found appeal among all sort of customers in South Indian Market. The acceptability of AMT technology is much higher than average in the southern markets like Kochi, Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Chennai. Initially it was expected that the automatic version would account for 25 per cent in Celerio, however, it continues to clock much higher figure of 40 per cent. Kochi has shown 53 per cent penetration for AMT. Auto gear shift is popular among women customers. Besides being easy to drive, it is a boon in stop-go city traffic conditions. With the fact that it is affordable and does not compromise on fuel efficiency, this technology has found wide appeal,” said Vinay Pant, Vice President, Marketing and Sales, Maruti Suzuki India.
AMT is much more economical than the conventional automatic and adds just 5-10 per cent to the price and consumes less fuel than manual transmission car. The trend has been growing in the near future. The technology is well suited to Indian driving conditions and brings convenience to customers especially in high traffic areas of cities, experts said.
“The AMT Technology has now a place in the affordable cars segment in the state. As people find it difficult to drive in extreme traffic conditions, auto gear shift is something they wish for. At present people are increasingly buying this variant and the trend will continue in the near future. From customer’s feed back, it is learnt that fuel efficiency also not impacted using the technology,” said Eldo Benjamin, vice-president, Nippon Toyota.
He opined that more auto makers will come with such variant cars in the future and would become a trend in the industry.
Maruti Suzuki claims that Alto K10 and Celerio has same fuel efficiency for their AMT variant as the manual petrol version.