It’s been a while now that automobile manufacturer Maruti came up with its first AMT (Automatic Manual Transmission) based hatchback- Maruti Suzuki Celerio which was a great success for the company. It was the first car in India to be introduced with AMT. Now, it is outselling its competitors in the market with a waiting period of going up to 4-5 months. Apart from Celerio, there are more Maruti Suzuki AMT cars. Maruti has also introduced Alto k10 AMT in India which also attracted huge audience. Not only this, last month we reported about the expected launch of AMT version of Wagon R in the Stingray edition. Now looking at the high demand of AMT products in the market, Maruti seems to move further with its plans to introduce AMT variants of all Maruti Suzuki cars.
Maruti currently gets the AMT gearboxes from Italy which are imported as CBU (Completely Built Up) units. It was also disclosed earlier that there will be aroun 43% increase in Maruti Suzuki AMT cars production. For the same reasion, Magneti Marelli (Fiat Group-owned automotive component manufacturer) has signed a joint venture with and Maruti Suzuki to manufacture AMT kits. Motorbeam has revealed that Maruti Suzuki is going to use the AMT kits provided by Magneti Marelli and launch AMT versions of all its cars, yet there is no official confirmation about it.
AMT gearboxes will be introduced in almost all the Maruti cars except one or two. Like Ciaz is expected to continue with its CVT automatic. This AMT trend seems to have captured whole automobile market. There are many other automobile manufacturers who are coming up with AMT versions of their cars. Tata has come up with Zest AMT compact sedan (first diesel car with this technology), Tata is also working on AMT nano version which will be the most affordable AMT equipped car in the country. Toyota is also planning to introduce automatic version of all its cars by 2016. Now the report suggesting that 30% cars in India will be automatic by 2020 seems to be coming true.
AMT cars have their own pros and cons. AMT cars provide better fuel efficiency and better acceleration as compared to manual transmission cars. AMT cars also prove as a boon in congested roads and traffic jams since the driver doesn’t need do press the clutch again and again. They deliver a pleasurable driving experience. On the other hand, AMT cars cost more are comparatively expensive to repair and maintain. They cost 30,000-35,000 more than the non- AMT models but they are worth the extra price paid due to the advantages that they deliver to the Indian customers.
Source- Motorbeam
Also Read- Difference between Automatic and Manual Transmission
