[Rajeevraj]

After adding Airbags as an option across all variants of Swift, Dzire and Celerio and Wagon R, Maruti has announced a driver airbag as an option across all variants of the Alto and Alto K10.

Each variant with Airbag will cost an extra Rs 9,728 with the optional airbag. Maruti Suzuki is also adding the left ORVM across all the trims.

A welcome move to equip India's largest selling car with an Airbag. Considering the incremental cost is only 9K, should have offered dual airbags. Or it maybe the dashboard design does not support it? This will also make the Alto K10 AMT the cheapest Automatic with an Airbag.


With this move, apart from the legacy models Eeco, Omni, Gypsy and Ritz, all Maruti models across all variants have a driver airbag by default or at least as an option. Apart from the Alto twins, all other get dual airbags and ABS with EBD as standard or as an option across all variants. That is a huge improvement from a company that until maybe 12-18 months back was known to offer airbags and ABS only on the top variant of their higher end models. Nice job Maruti.


Source: Overdrive

[Knowall]

Though its great that companies have started to add Airbags,ABS and other safety features, I keep wondering how all these make any difference if the car is structurally not safe enough for an airbag to have any effect on saving lives...

The foundation of any structure needs to be strong enough to withstand the primary impact like good crash structures, additional safety bars within the doors, intrusion and protection zones..

As an example, I have an Alto K10 and I have noticed that under the rear bumper there are no crash structures or safety bars, if a car hits me from the back there is very little protection.

[blackasta]

Commendable move by MSIL on adding Airbags & PA side ORVM.
IMO They should also offer an option for PA side Airbags.
Better to market them as buffet options like 'driver protection add on pack' and 'family protection add on pack' - that should push more people to buy them as options.

[hybridpetrol]

Good move! What is more interesting is that Maruti now finds the LHS mirror important and decided to provide across all the variants. I have seen many owners with Lxi driving without LHS mirrors because it was an accessory.

Next point is, Driver airbag was an option even before with Lxi and Vxi as well, but how many such airbag equipped cars did they sell? Dealers used to discourage the buyers from taking Lxi (O) or Vxi (O) citing waiting period and no discounts. Which means what on paper was just 10K extra, could actually cost about 40K extra, due to the discount factor, thus invariably making variants without airbags popular among budget buyers. The only way airbag equipped versions can become the norm is by pushing these to the dealers, and restricting the supply of variants without airbag. In fact, if the company is serious, I am of the opinion that, they should add airbag as part of the standard equipment.

So, the market leader has taken the lead in making airbag at least an option in all of their models. Will others also do the same, not just for premium cars, but for all, starting from Nano?

[Chetan_Rao]

Anything optional will never sell, because in the real world everyone down from the dealer to the last salesperson in the showroom will get in the customer's ear how these options are useless, supply is short, no discount blah blah to push the (marginally) cheaper, readily available variants. 10k is a good sum in the entry segment, and most customers will be willing to save it if possible.

Seems more like a PR exercise than anything else. The only way to increase safety equipment adoption in a country like India where the vast majority is plain ignorant of these, is to make these mandatory. Anything else is just window dressing.

Maruti Suzuki is also adding the left ORVM across all the trims

Minor but critical addition. Better late than never.

[Karthik Chandra]

Kudos to MSIL , much awaited move, to equip India's largest selling car with Airbag. Its heartening to see the leader responding to safety concerns

Originally Posted by Rajeevraj

With this move, apart from the legacy models Eeco, Omni, Gypsy and Ritz, all Maruti models across all variants have a driver airbag by default or at least as an option.

This confirms that the Ritz will be phased out soon, Eeco and Omni are selling more than 5K, so MSIL won't pull the plug anytime soon.

Originally Posted by hybridpetrol

Good move! What is more interesting is that Maruti now finds the LHS mirror important and decided to provide across all the variants. I have seen many owners with Lxi driving without LHS mirrors because it was an accessory.

Originally Posted by Chetan_Rao

Minor but critical addition. Better late than never.

There used to be print ads stating left side ORVMs in the feature list

Originally Posted by hybridpetrol

Next point is, Driver airbag was an option even before with Lxi and Vxi as well, but how many such airbag equipped cars did they sell? Dealers used to discourage the buyers from taking Lxi (O) or Vxi (O) citing waiting period and no discounts. Which means what on paper was just 10K extra, could actually cost about 40K extra, due to the discount factor, thus invariably making variants without airbags popular among budget buyers. The only way airbag equipped versions can become the norm is by pushing these to the dealers, and restricting the supply of variants without airbag. In fact, if the company is serious, I am of the opinion that, they should add airbag as part of the standard equipment.

Originally Posted by Chetan_Rao

Anything optional will never sell, because in the real world everyone down from the dealer to the last salesperson in the showroom will get in the customer's ear how these options are useless, supply is short, no discount blah blah to push the (marginally) cheaper, readily available variants. 10k is a good sum in the entry segment, and most customers will be willing to save it if possible.

Agreed, but the customer needs to be wise and matured enough to choose what he/she wants. The manufacturer has now left the ball in customer's court. It is up to the customers to choose what they want. If the customer is dumb enough to listen to the SA, decides to save 10K at the cost of safety, so be it. MSIL has done its job, the company is now leading by example

Originally Posted by hybridpetrol

So, the market leader has taken the lead in making airbag at least an option in all of their models. Will others also do the same, not just for premium cars, but for all, starting from Nano?

Do they have a choice? they would follow suit. When the leader responds to change, the challengers will have no choice. Its only a matter of time before we get the Nano with optional airbag, given the commitment TATA shows to the Nano

[xs2mayank]

Good move by Maruti. In that way at least informed and safety conscious consumers who cannot afford higher variants or a different car will be able to get a car with airbag. It would have been great if they had made it mandatory but I think that will not happen unless government makes it a rule which I think is going to happen from 2017 onward. Looks like Maruti is gearing up all their cars for that.

[hybridpetrol]

Originally Posted by Karthik Chandra

Agreed, but the customer needs to be wise and matured enough to choose what he/she wants. The manufacturer has now left the ball in customer's court. It is up to the customers to choose what they want. If the customer is dumb enough to listen to the SA, decides to save 10K at the cost of safety, so be it.

Everybody who have enough money can buy a car, they need not necessarily have any sort of awareness about safety features. Do you think all the 2 lakh+ buyers purchasing cars every month are knowledgeable enough to do such study about the list of features and compare cars based on that on their own? Many just go by looks, or interior comfort or price, and all these factors are subjective.
If customer is on his own now, how was it before then? Previously also customer could have chosen more safe cars paying a little extra!
Cars such as Alto STD and LX are primarily bought by Driving schools, and I am quite convinced, they would not bother buying a variant with airbag!

I do not agree with the statement that the cost of the cars will raise due to the airbags. Will the buyers stop buying Altos, if the price of Lxi is increased by 10K, because of the inclusion of airbag? Hardly. There could be other reasons such as manufacturing constraints etc. Whatever the constraints are, I sincerely hope companies resolve them quickly and make safety features (Airbag, ABS, EBD at least, and Hill hold feature in addition for Automatic variants) part of standard equipment.

[nikhilck]

Guys, doesn't the 9800 Rs price tag seem a little too much? I've read somewhere that it costs the carmaker around a 100$.

[audioholic]

Originally Posted by nikhilck

Guys, doesn't the 9800 Rs price tag seem a little too much? I've read somewhere that it costs the carmaker around a 100$.

For Indian markets, I think its pretty cheap. $100 only gets you the airbag module. There is a lot of other things in addition to it.Hence an overall premium of 10k is pretty justified. Now next in line must be a localised ABS for another 10-15k.

[CARDEEP]

I welcome this move, but have couple of observation on this malpractice by auto majors:
1. Safety features are necessity, not an option, & not Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), i.e. an initiative based on option of the management. India has the notorious distinction of being in the top of having unsafe roads. Yet the manufacturers are reluctant to offer safety features as standard in best selling models (cash cows).
2. Discounts will be gone - for a customer who opts for optional safety features, I'm sure the discounts will not be there. for the dealers & company both, the option pack would be a low sale feature & if the buyer opts for the same the discounts (generally quite high in Maruti's case) would be gone. Thus, the customer either buys an unsafe car or pays higher than realizable market value; yet the company & dealer laugh all the way to bank.
3. Cash Test results of Alto - Like someone already pointed out a car with unsafe structure is even more unsafe with Airbags. The diver's chest section in particular can suffer life threatening injuries because of the airbag in case of unsafe structure & manufacturers generally compromise a lot in Indian models. We need to know the safety rating of base Alto (as tested in Latin NCAP) to understand this scenario.

[H_Dogg72]

Originally Posted by nikhilck

Guys, doesn't the 9800 Rs price tag seem a little too much? I've read somewhere that it costs the carmaker around a 100$.

It is optional, you want it? pay 10k simple.

Originally Posted by CARDEEP

I welcome this move, but have couple of observation on this malpractice by auto majors:
1\.
3. Cash Test results of Alto - Like someone already pointed out a car with unsafe structure is even more unsafe with Airbags. The diver's chest section in particular can suffer life threatening injuries because of the airbag in case of unsafe structure & manufacturers generally compromise a lot in Indian models. We need to know the safety rating of base Alto (as tested in Latin NCAP) to understand this scenario.

Bang on, mate
This is a marketing gimmick, The latin N cap rated the structure as unstable and just like the GO said that airbags won't help. Datsun replied by "stating" they'll get a better structure and airbags.
As far as i know this is the same crippled structure which won't be acing the crash test anytime soon with the airbag equipped either.

[GTO]

Received this very sad statistic from Maruti. Merely 5% of customers are buying the optional airbag.

[Sree73]

Originally Posted by GTO

Received this very sad statistic from Maruti. Merely 5% of customers are buying the optional airbag.

This 5% figure is really pathetic. We, as a society has not evolved to see the safety needs of cars objectively. For most of the consumers, Airbag is just an additional cost which can be avoided. I have come across many who says, "in case of an accident, we have to bear a huge cost to reinstall the airbags".

Unless and until all manufactures make the airbag as a part of standard offer, the statistics will hover around these figures.

[pankajn1702]

I believe these 5% customers are those that are ready to wait for 60-90 days for Maruti to manufacture the optional variants on order.

Not everyone would want to wait that long for cars like alto/wagon r/celerio that ideally should be available readily.

I was persuaded by the SA to go for non-airbags variant of Wagon r because the dealer was unable to commit delivery of optional variant even if I would have waited for 2-3 months.