With the advancement in technology in the automotive sector, majority of buyers want to own a car which can take them to their destination quickly and conveniently. This phenomenon has caused the shift in focus towards performance oriented automated cars for the new age customers. On a general basis, automatic cars do tend to offer a relaxed and fatigue-less driving experience. Such cars are being preferred by buyers, especially in the urban regions.
However, the automation champions do not come without their own set of woes. The major drawback is that currently, the option is available only in the high end C-segment sedans from leading automobile manufacturers and there are very few hatchbacks that offer an automatic transmission. This causes an increase in the price of the automatic cars in the absence of choices.
As metropolitan cities become more and more congested owing to the ever-increasing traffic, commuting has become a tiring task. This is the prime reason behind customer's preference for automatic cars for an easy drive in the heavy traffic. There is also a huge demand for such cars in the hatchback segment in the Indian automotive market due to their compact size, which is more suitable for narrow streets of India.
To make the most of the current scenario, the German car maker Volkswagen (VW) has geared up to launch its Polo hatchback with an automatic transmission unit. Currently, the car maker is testing the new automatic gearbox in its existing 1.6 litre top-end variant of the Polo. This new much-needed hatchback will possibly make its début in the country towards the end of August, 2012. However, the biggest challenge for the car maker would be to offer the new hatchback with the right price tag. Despite the lack of competition in the respective segment, it may have a tough rival in the form of Hyundai i20, which is the only premium hatchback with an automatic gear-shift in the country as of now. The new car from the South Korean car maker is available for sale in India at a price of Rs. 7.8 lacs.
It is expected that Polo 1.6 Automatic will be the topmost variant in the Polo line-up after its launch in India. The existing Polo Highline 1.6 litre petrol variant costs Rs. 6.5 lacs in the market, so it is expected that the car maker may add a premium of around Rs. 1 lac to this price tag. This is in light of the fact that the Vento sedan from VW is costlier by the same amount in its automatic segment compared to the manual transmission variant. So it is expected that the car maker may introduce the new automatic hatchback with a price ranging between Rs. 7.4-7.5 lacs for the Polo Highline Automatic variant.
