I had the chance to test drive all AMT vehicles being offered now - Nano, Alto and the Celerio. Here are my observations, with more of a "Nano" perspective as this is the car in question here. Slight long post so please bear with me!
First glance, the new Nano AMT looks dashing, specially in red! It's finally got a hatch and a boot that manages to hold about 2 laptop bags and a kilo of fruits. Build quality seems average; nothing great. You will find all the other details in the review so I'm not going to go over them here. Now to the AMT Driving experience. Spoiler Alert - it was diasspointing! In the 'A' mode, the car barely moves - doesn't creep on removing the foot off the brake pedal. One needs to press the acc pedal H-A-R-D, right to the floor to get the Nano engine to respond. Sluggish performance is probably overstating it - I'd rather term it as lethargic and draggy. Here's something I'd like to share with regards to driving in city traffic - During the TD, the lane ahead of me cleared up, and natuarlly, I wanted to get the Nano in to spot that opened up on the road, and I start giving the Acc pedal input. I'm waiting...and waiting ... and waiting and nothing's happening. After what seemed like ages, the engine responded and we finally started moving to the open spot on the road, only to be greeted with other traffic joining into the road from the cross roads. Now that I had missed my chance to occupy the free spot ahead of me, and seeing the traffic merging ahead, I decided to slow down and pressed on the brakes. Nothing happened. Press harder - still nothing! I started 'br(e)aking into a sweat seeing that I was approaching traffic and couldnt slow down and I literally stood on the brake and bam.. the brakes finally started biting! It was an unnerving experience indeed and I slowed down and moved to the left lane.
Having understood the behavior of this car, I changed my driving style and suddenly, I noticed that the car was behaving well. I then determined that this car needs to stay on the left or the middle lane of a road and never on the fast lane. Once I got a hold of this characteristic of the car, I drove very sedately and gave micro inputs to the Acc and brake pedals and the car obliged gracefully. Long story short, you cannot drive this car like your usual style - you need to alter your driving style to be able to use this in the city and most importantly, leave the overtaking and the "gapping" mode of driving at home! One brilliant thing is the turning radius of this little beauty. I was on the rightmost lane of the road, attempting a U turn at a signal. Generally in other cars I'd rather be at the center-right or the center of the road and then attempt the U turn (or more often, a 3 point turn) and I'd end up on the left most lane after the U turn. In the nano, I was amazed how easily it did a U turn from the right lane of the road, to the center lane of the other side after the turn! The EPS was delightful to use along with the short turning radius. Here again, I had to floor the accelerator when I had to move at the green signal and only then, the car responded to my input. Manual mode was a better "controlled" drive and didn't feel any different than the other Nano's I've driven. Suspension looks like it has been improved as I couldn't feel the THUD of a pothole - not sure whether it was the pothole or the car! NVH is still an issue inside the cabin and one can clearly hear the engine working hard, over the abysmally tinny and punch-less integrated music system.
I then went on to drive the Alto and was pleasantly surprised at the response from the engine. Currently owning the 2010 Alto K10, I could clearly relate to the performance of the engine - it still has that peppiness and eagerness to surge ahead on the acc pedal input and the AMT performed pretty well, except while on inclines and when the AMT was in the 1st gear where I could feel the clutch judder come into play. Apart from this, the Alto retains the same pocket-rocket image, but now with an AMT. I felt that the manual mode in the Alto K10 AMT was more of a pocket rocket++. It was super powerful and the burst of acceleration and energy is unbelievable. One can use this at green lights to surge ahead of the other vehicles. The acceleration in the Auto mode felt a bit more "tamed" when compared to the M mode.
Next up, I drove the Celerio. Oodles of space (compared to the other 2 contenders) and excellent refinement. The AMT felt like it was "at home" in the Celerio. Engine had the same peppiness as the Alto, but somehow, the AMT Auto mode performed better in the Celerio than in the Alto. The M mode was also good, but there was a lack of that zesty "oomph" that one got with the Alto K10 in the M mode. I concluded that the Celerio deserved to be driven in the A mode all the time as it somehow felt very 'refined' if I may use the word without sounding too cliched.
Overall, I'd say that the nano needs to go over 2 more iterations to get to what consumers want - a more powerful engine and better NVH to make it more acceptable. Now, at 3.7L OTR Bangalore, the nano seems a bit expensive. The Alto K10 AMT stands at 5.11L OTR and Celerio VXi Stands at 5.82L OTR. I also heard that Maruti is now launching a Celerio ZXi variant which will have the AMT as well and will also come with integrated ICE with BT, Steering mounted controls, Fog lamps and other goodies. This variant is priced at 6.2L OTR.
I undersdtand why Maruti is bringing out this version. With Alto at 5.1L and the Celerio Vxi at 5.8, most people who can stretch their budgets will end up buying the Celerio which is a much better package. With this strategy, and with Tata launching the Nano AMT, I'm guessing that Maruti will get the AMT into the 800CC Alto or will have a AMT Alto K10 LXi variant with the AMT option. This will place the Alto AMT around the 4.2L - 4.5L Price range which will clearly create a nice place of itself. After driving the Nano AMT, I'm sure the mango-man looking for that AMT experience will not mind spending a bit more to buy the Alto with AMT, specially when it comes with a name like Maruti and the relatively stress free ownwership and after sales experience.