Tata Motors’ premium hatchback with 1.2 petrol and 1.5 diesel engines and now offered with a CNG variant drives past the 200,000 sales milestone in the domestic market.
24 Jun 2023 | 16994 Views | By Ajit Dalvi
The Tata Altroz, most recently in the news for being the latest Tata car to get the CNG treatment, has driven past the 200,000-unit sales milestone in the Indian market.
Tata Motors’ premium hatchback, launched on January 22, 2020, has taken 41 months to notch the sales milestone. ...
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The Tata Altroz, most recently in the news for being the latest Tata car to get the CNG treatment, has driven past the 200,000-unit sales milestone in the Indian market.
Tata Motors’ premium hatchback, launched on January 22, 2020, has taken 41 months to notch the sales milestone. As of end-May 2023, the Altroz had clocked sales of an estimated 198,982 units – just 1,018 units shy of the 200,000 mark (see data table below). Given the average monthly sales of 4,715 units or 157 units per day in the first five months of CY2023, that gap would have been filled in the first week of May 2023.
The Altroz is currently available in as many as 42 variants (27 petrol, 9 diesel and 6 petrol-CNG) with 1.2 petrol, 1.2 turbo petrol and 1.5 diesel engines, and prices ranging from Rs 751,000 (1.2 petrol XW MT manual) through to Rs 12.82 lakh (1.5 diesel XZ+ (S) Dark MT manual) on-road Delhi. The Altroz CNG’s pricing starts at Rs 857,000 for the 1.2 CNG XE MT.
The stylish high-on-value hatchback raced past the 50,000 units sales mark within a year of launch. Then, 10 months later, on September 21, 2021, the 100,000th Altroz rolled out from Tata Motors’ Pune plant.
Proof that the car has seen sustained demand, in the face of the ongoing market shift to SUVs, lies in the numbers. Despite FY2021 being a pandemic-impacted year, the Altroz sold 60,379 units and 62,247 units in FY2022, up 3% year on year. However, sales fell 7% in FY2023 to 57,819 units. Sales have gone past 10,000 units in the first two months of FY2024, and the recently launched Altroz CNG variant is expected to give a fillip to overall sales.
The Altroz, which is the first Tata car to use the ALFA (Agile Light Flexible Advanced) architecture, was the 36th made-in-India car to be crash-tested by Global NCAP (under the previous protocol) and became the company’s second – after the Tata Nexon – and India’s second GNCAP five-star rated car.
Altroz DCA taps demand for automatics, CNG variant expands choice
In March 2022, in an effort to rev up sales and to cater to growing demand for automatic transmission-equipped cars, Tata Motors launched the Altroz DCA, equipped with a dual-clutch transmission from Punch Powertrain. The Altroz DCA is priced at Rs 854,900 (ex-showroom), which has a premium for its DCA transmission over the similar-spec trim with the standard five-speed manual gearbox.
Five months after it revealed both the Altroz CNG along with Punch CNG compact SUV at the Auto Expo 2023, Tata Motors launched the Altroz CNG on May 22 at Rs 755,000. The Altroz CNG debuts the carmaker's new dual-cylinder setup for CNG tanks and is also the first CNG-powered hatchback to sport a sunroof on the XM+ (S), XZ+ (S) and XZ+ O (S) trims.
The Altroz CNG is powered by a 1.2-litre petrol engine mated to a 5-speed manual gearbox. In petrol mode, it develops 88hp and 115Nm of torque, whereas in CNG mode, it produces 77hp and 103Nm of torque. In comparison, its direct rivals – Maruti Suzuki Baleno CNG and Toyota Glanza CNG – produce a similar 77hp but a lesser 98.5Nm of torque in their CNG modes. Furthermore, unlike these two rivals, the Altroz can start directly in CNG mode.
The Altroz, which is part of Tata Motors’ ‘New Forever’ range along with the Tiago, Tigor, Nexon, Harrier and Safari, has contributed to the company’s accelerated growth drive over the past three years.
Tata Motors, which achieved its best-ever annual sales in CY2022 with 526,798 PVs including 8% EVs and best-ever fiscal sales of 538,640 units in FY2023. Of the carmaker’s cumulative three-year (FY2021 to FY2023) sales of 11,33,121 units, the Altroz has contributed 180,445 units or 16 percent ensuring the company remains a strong player in the premium hatchback segment.
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