Individual buyers don't like vehicles sold as taxis: Why Hyundai will drive Aura alongside Xcent

"In the future, vehicles will be specially designed with own telematics boxes, flexible seating arrangement - a step ahead of vehicle manufacturers starting to develop exclusively for commercial use. Globally, talks are on about having multiple seating arrangements, designed around passengers [needs]," he adds. According to him, features will revolve around passengers rather than drivers. 

"Many countries have a typical car model that is most popular for a taxi, but carmakers don't specifically promote it exclusively for commercial use," says Aryaman Tandon, the automotive leader at consulting firm Praxis Global Alliance. 

He cites the example of the UK, where TX4 is used exclusively as a taxi. But in India, the model is slightly different. "They are essentially the same passenger-vehicle models with some tweaks for the commercial taxis - not a totally different model. The Dzire tour model has been quite successful in India," he says.

The bottom line

Xcent will have a bigger space to play once the diesel variant of Maruti Suzuki Dzire moves to the archives from April 1. A feature-rich Aura will also try to garner a large share of the compact-sedan market. But if Hyundai wants to make a mark in the taxicab space, it will have to make more follow-up products like Xcent. "Otherwise it could be just a flash in the pan," feels Tandon from Praxis.

Featured Leader: Aryaman Tandon

This article was originally published on ET Prime. Read more.

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