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One of the reasons why the Renault Kwid is $4000 is because, well, it uses cheap materials, and with that comes a very bad safety rating. This is enabled by India's nearly non-existent car safety regulations. Everything has a "price".
They mention using a single Indian supplier and designing for that supplier as an advantage. Where I work we wouldn't be allowed to do that - always want at least two different suppliers so we don't put ourselves at risk. Hope it works out for them - seems like a fun little car.
1: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-honda-results-idUSKCN0Y40...
What Is Disruption, Anyway? ... In India, where the average wage remains a fraction of those in the first world, it starts with an affordable car that isn’t a complete piece of junk. 5 Paragraphs later: It would be the same price as the sector-leading Maruti Suzuki, but with more space. It would include a 7” infotainment system with a touchscreen. It would have real ground clearance. It would resemble a smaller versi…
This is something I've always wondered, why are even the cheapest cars (in the Western world) so expensive? Isn't it possible to make a new car under ~ $10,000?
It'd probably be very easy to strip out the catalytic converter, airbags, ABS, no-stick upholstery, and a bunch of other modern stuff from a Toyota Yaris to get it below the $10k line. It wouldn't make a huge amount of sense, even if you didn't care about safety and emissions. A lot of that modern stuff (engine management! corrosion resistance!) is responsible for cars lasting so much longer than they used to, with relatively little maintenance required.
That ceremony looks monstrously tiring to an introverted westerner like me. I don't want to cut a cake and watch a priest bless my car; I want to walk onto a lot, look over the car I pre-selected online to make sure it's the right one, and then give someone some money and drive away. I'm also wondering how long that friendly attitude - and the traveling pop-up repair program - will last. Once everyone wants one of th…
Well, I guess it's a good thing the article isn't about westerners, let alone introverts...
That ceremony looks monstrously tiring to an introverted westerner like me. I don't want to cut a cake and watch a priest bless my car; I want to walk onto a lot, look over the car I pre-selected online to make sure it's the right one, and then give someone some money and drive away. I'm also wondering how long that friendly attitude - and the traveling pop-up repair program - will last. Once everyone wants one of th…
One of the reasons why the Renault Kwid is $4000 is because, well, it uses cheap materials, and with that comes a very bad safety rating. This is enabled by India's nearly non-existent car safety regulations. Everything has a "price".
Ahhh safety, driving, and the developing world. Ugh. I haven't tested the hypothesis but I think the switch from mopeds to cars has resulted in a huge number of traffic fatalities. This was super evident in Thailand as it's quite clear that non tuk-tuk/rickshaw or motorcycle transport is a very new thing. There's an obliviousness to the fact that they're driving thousands of pounds of steel and nobody else on the roa…
One of the reasons why the Renault Kwid is $4000 is because, well, it uses cheap materials, and with that comes a very bad safety rating. This is enabled by India's nearly non-existent car safety regulations. Everything has a "price".
For those in that area that can't afford a safe, reliable car, perhaps it's a step up from a motorbike though. Not to mention, it allows for more passengers in the death trap.
One of the reasons why the Renault Kwid is $4000 is because, well, it uses cheap materials, and with that comes a very bad safety rating. This is enabled by India's nearly non-existent car safety regulations. Everything has a "price".
Although if the alternative is to be riding a moped, and in many cases without a helmet, this still represents a step forward in safety.
One of the reasons why the Renault Kwid is $4000 is because, well, it uses cheap materials, and with that comes a very bad safety rating. This is enabled by India's nearly non-existent car safety regulations. Everything has a "price".
Traffic speed in cities is usually so bad that you will rarely if ever meet with a major accident using these cars. That doesn't mean that safety isn't important. It's just that we are not talking about 70mph American freeway speeds.