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Aussie push for Tata safety upgrade
Competitive local market has influenced enhanced safety for Xenon pick-upThe intense competition of the Australian market is driving safety advances for the Tata Xenon light commercial vehicle range, says the local distributor's managing director.
"It's the most competitive market in the world," Darren Bowler told motoring.com.au earlier today.
"There are 68 manufacturers here playing in [a market of] a million cars; there's not a lot of room to get things wrong. These [airbags, stability control, Euro 5] are the must haves, if we're going to enter the market. This is what we must have."
Other Tata global markets include Brazil, Turkey, South Africa, Italy and Thailand, which Bowler described as "not at the forefront of pushing the safety barrier."
When current Tata distributor Fusion Automotive began selling the Xenon here, from November last year, the Indian-built pick-up came with airbag technology, ABS and a Euro 5-compliant engine. The plan all along was for the Xenon to be one of the pioneers in its price bracket to feature stability control.
That plan has been pushed back, according to Bowler, due to delays testing the Xenon's Bosch-developed system in China. Originally the system was to be readied for Australian-spec vehicles by the beginning of this year. Then it was held over for a June release, but now the safety technology is definitely confirmed for late August or September.
"That's all been signed off [now], and the first 18 or 20 cars have just been produced... they're about to go on a boat and they will be arriving late August, early September..." Bowler said.
It's a reflection of Fusion's collective experience and credibility – both Bowler and his CEO, Oliver Lukeis, are ex-HSV alumni – that Tata has acted upon the distributor's recommendations.
"We have an input into Tata Motors, from a product point of view, so when we first met the Tata Xenon, that car didn't have an airbag, that car didn't have a Euro 5 engine, and ABS had only just been introduced at that time," Bowler explained.
"We talked about the requirements of what we needed for Australia; we talked about 'we must have airbag; we want to be ahead of the game with Euro 5, we want to have ESC in the vehicles.'
"Everything has been put into that, based on what we have requested.
"ESC [Electronic Stability Control] has been a little bit delayed, because of the Bosch component testing... There was a lot more work involved in that.
"Australia was the first market in the world to pick up the Xenon with Euro 5 and airbag technology. And it will be the first market to have ESC. Now that's purely because of our input, demanding the safety level in this vehicle – that we protect our customers, make sure we're delivering a product that we're comfortable with, that's going to fit into our market..."
Tata has its own agenda to pursue in making sure the Xenon is properly equipped to match the competition in mature markets like Australia; it's not just out of kindness. The Indian company – the parent to Jaguar Land Rover – has longer-term plans to expand into Europe and North America.
Australia is a nearby market (in the same general time zone) with right-hand drive roads like India's, but a buying public that's quite demanding and able to satisfy its demands by shopping around. And as Bowler stated more than once, the market here is intensely and hotly contested in all segments, but the pick-up/cab-chassis segments in particular. Just look at the top 10 cars in VFACTS – three of them are HiLux, Ranger and Triton.
"For India, Australia is good grounding when you're looking at global positioning. If you can meet the criteria for Australia, you can sell anywhere," Bowler explained.
Failing to bring stability control to market in time cost the Xenon a higher ANCAP rating when the vehicle was tested for crash safety earlier this year and scored just two stars.
"The vehicle was crash-tested by ANCAP back in February. At that particular time... it had one of the highest ratings for the offset barrier test, of vehicles in that segment," Bowler said, putting a positive spin on what must have been an otherwise unsatisfactory result.
"What it lacked was ESC.
"Without ESC it couldn't achieve anything more than a two-star rating.
"We need to produce evidence that the vehicle is fitted with ESC and it will just automatically be reclassified into where it needs to go. Now where it goes, I can't pre-empt what they're going to say it will be – that's up to them to come out with that announcement."
If the Xenon can achieve a sufficiently high ANCAP score, that will inevitably grow sales, opening the way for commercial fleets that purchase vehicles on the strength of the occupational health and safety factor.
The Xenon has sold in small numbers since its introduction in November, but is expected to sell considerably more as the safer cars begin to reach customers.
"From a sales point of view we've sold just on about 150 cars at retail – to customers," Bowler stated. "That's about on par with where we wanted to be. We didn't want to come in and flood the market, from an oversupply point of view. Our plan was to launch vehicles with ESC. ESC vehicles are being built at the moment, in India, and will be arriving for sale in September.
"At that point in time we'll have a second phase of our branding, making noise about safety... but the build-up has been getting the brand out there, getting the [dealer] network established, training our dealers, getting the customers to understand who Tata is, as a global brand..."
Bowler was reluctant to talk turkey about sales projections for the Xenon following the introduction of ESC – not least of all because it's purely speculation and the dealer network is in a state of flux anyway, but he did acknowledge Tata "would certainly see an increase in sales, and ... an increase in enquiry."
He did indicate that existing dealers were ordering double the number of vehicles they had been, on the basis of expectations the active safety feature will remove one major objection to buying the Xenon.
And sales of the Xenon should grow further, as the local Tata dealer network expands. Back in November last year – with a trickle of new stock to sell – the dealer network comprised nine, but has since grown to the current figure of 23. The distributor plans to continue appointing new dealers, anticipating the network to number 40 by the end of the year, and around 65 by the middle of 2016.
"We're working feverishly to appoint dealers; we're ahead of our target, in terms of dealers. We were aiming for 20 dealers by [the end of] year one..." Bowler explained.
"We've actually got people talking to us about wanting franchises, but we're trying to strategically locate dealers in the right footprint without just going: 'Here you go, everyone can have it'..."
Not all those dealers will be able to get on board however, with the distributor choosing the locations that make most sense for sales and marketing reach.
"We don't want to 'over-dealerise', we looking at making sure that our footprint is getting coverage of the whole of Australia, but also making sure that our dealer network is profitable."
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Written byKen Gratton
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