Car sales are booming all over India. That's the old news. How to manage the upsurge? That's the future.
Before I get to the numbers, let me get the questions out of the way: how much should a newly wealthy nation be allowed to flex its muscles? How does it balance the aspirations of a growing middle class as symbolised by buying vehicles with the havoc that 250 million vehicles can cause on traffic, infrastructure and the environment? Doesn't conspicuous consumption play a natural role in the evolution of an emerging, or as Barack Obama, the US president, would have it, "emerged", economy?
According to the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM), domestic car sales grew by 45.93 per cent last month relative to growth of 21.63 per cent in September. This growth was across the board, and the numbers for some car makers were staggering. Ford, while hardly zooming ahead in the US, saw an increase in Indian sales of 161 per cent last month compared with October last year.
The luxury car segment, dominated by Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Audi, grew 60 per cent this year. Although absolute numbers are small, there has been a ninefold increase in the sales of Rolls-Royces, with most going to the rich city of Ludhiana in Punjab.
Toyota thought it would sell just 12 Priuses a month in India, given the high price caused by the 110 per cent import duty. The company's expectations have been surpassed with 80 units ordered in three months. Segway, the two-wheeled personal transporter, has just launched in India. Aston Martin plans to sell in India by the end of this year.
While the robust vehicle sales numbers are bad news for the environment, they are good news on many other levels. For a long time and for a variety of reasons, Indians, particularly south Indians, refused to buy luxury cars, especially foreign ones. In Bombay, the rich feared being targeted by underworld dons who would use their licence plate numbers to find them. In South India, driving a Mercedes or a BMW was considered obscenely ostentatious - something that people from good families simply would not do. In Delhi and Punjab, the opposite rule held. As my Punjabi friend says: "Punjabis like to show off their wealth. What's the point of being worth millions and driving a local car? If you've got it, you might as well flaunt it with a BMW." The increase in the number of luxury cars on Indian roads signifies that more Indians are getting wealthier or at least wealthy enough to afford luxury cars; it also implies that people prefer to spend their money rather than hoard it. Lastly, it reflects the exuberance or joie de vivre of a young nation that is just coming to terms with its affluence. Whether this exuberance is irrational is still up for the markets to decide.
It is not just foreign-made luxury cars that have to contend with complicated equations with the Indian consumer. The same applies to the cheapest of Indian models. When the Tata Nano launched a couple of years ago, priced at less than 100,000 rupees (Dh8,080), the global press lauded the vehicle as an engineering marvel. "Meet the world's cheapest car," said The New York Times, comparing its price tag to the "price of the optional DVD player on the Lexus LX 470 sport utility vehicle".
Indians reacted quite differently, though. The urban elite who had their BMWs and Fords wondered whether Indian roads could withstand the invasion of the Nanos.
"It is no doubt a great achievement for Tata. But do we really need this car on the Indian roads?" asked oneNew York Times reader in a comment on the story, echoing the feelings of many. "As is, the Indian roads are choking with cars, gridlocks - what about the pollution and the air quality with emission from all these cars. The air quality in some of the metropolitan cities is horrendous. People are wasting hours stuck in traffic jams, wasting petrol and contributing to the air pollution. What we need is more public transportation - not more cheap cars."
On talk shows, liberal pundits called such remarks elitist. Who's to say that the poor can't buy cars? they demanded. Most of the people complaining against the Nano already owned two or three cars, they said. The same argument could apply to the West versus India on a number of issues. The West wants India to skip the conspicuous consumption stage that it went through. It wants less pollution and more stringent standards. The Indian car industry is under pressure from western watchdog agencies as well as local consumers. And still the cars keep selling.
Today, there are about 14 million cars on India's roads, 50 million two and three-wheelers, and about 8 million buses and trucks. As the car expert Murad Ali Baig wrote last year: "We do not have too many vehicles. We have too few roads. India today has just 14 cars per 1,000 people as compared to 19 in Pakistan, 64 in Thailand, 500 in Europe and Japan, and 740 in the USA."
Everyone agrees that India needs more and better roads, better public transport and fuel-efficiency norms. No one is sure how to achieve this. This month, Jairam Ramesh, the environment minister, got into the fray by declaring at a UN conference that the "use of vehicles like SUVs and BMWs in countries like India is criminal". The car lobby immediately took umbrage; the German ambassador quickly pointed out that the BMWs his country manufactured had excellent fuel efficiency and emissions. SIAM approached the government with a "cash for clunker" scheme that would get older, polluting vehicles off India's roads. The government promised to look into the scheme.
As an ardent environmentalist, I think the Indian government should ramp up its effort in public transportation. The Delhi Metro is a great start, but such a service should be operating in every Indian city and town. Until then, I don't think it is anyone's business whether the average Indian consumer can or should buy a car. Come on, your typical Amar, Akbar and Antony Indian is just getting a chance to enjoy his economy's GDP growth. Cut him some slack before sermonising, or sending the moral police down.
Shoba Narayan is a journalist based in Bangalore and is the author of Monsoon Diary
Specs
Engine: Duel electric motors
Power: 659hp
Torque: 1075Nm
On sale: Available for pre-order now
Price: On request
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
Started: 2021
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
Based: Tunisia
Sector: Water technology
Number of staff: 22
Investment raised: $4 million
NO OTHER LAND
Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal
Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
Rating: 3.5/5
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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Test
Director: S Sashikanth
Cast: Nayanthara, Siddharth, Meera Jasmine, R Madhavan
Star rating: 2/5
The National's picks
4.35pm: Tilal Al Khalediah
5.10pm: Continous
5.45pm: Raging Torrent
6.20pm: West Acre
7pm: Flood Zone
7.40pm: Straight No Chaser
8.15pm: Romantic Warrior
8.50pm: Calandogan
9.30pm: Forever Young
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
JOKE'S%20ON%20YOU
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At a glance
Global events: Much of the UK’s economic woes were blamed on “increased global uncertainty”, which can be interpreted as the economic impact of the Ukraine war and the uncertainty over Donald Trump’s tariffs.
Growth forecasts: Cut for 2025 from 2 per cent to 1 per cent. The OBR watchdog also estimated inflation will average 3.2 per cent this year
Welfare: Universal credit health element cut by 50 per cent and frozen for new claimants, building on cuts to the disability and incapacity bill set out earlier this month
Spending cuts: Overall day-to day-spending across government cut by £6.1bn in 2029-30
Tax evasion: Steps to crack down on tax evasion to raise “£6.5bn per year” for the public purse
Defence: New high-tech weaponry, upgrading HM Naval Base in Portsmouth
Housing: Housebuilding to reach its highest in 40 years, with planning reforms helping generate an extra £3.4bn for public finances
Real estate tokenisation project
Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.
Skewed figures
In the village of Mevagissey in southwest England the housing stock has doubled in the last century while the number of residents is half the historic high. The village's Neighbourhood Development Plan states that 26% of homes are holiday retreats. Prices are high, averaging around £300,000, £50,000 more than the Cornish average of £250,000. The local average wage is £15,458.
Company%20profile
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COMPANY%20PROFILE
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COMPANY PROFILE
● Company: Bidzi
● Started: 2024
● Founders: Akshay Dosaj and Asif Rashid
● Based: Dubai, UAE
● Industry: M&A
● Funding size: Bootstrapped
● No of employees: Nine
The%20Killer
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Women%E2%80%99s%20Asia%20Cup
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UPI facts
More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023
More than 3.5 million Indians reside in UAE
Indian tourists can make purchases in UAE using rupee accounts in India through QR-code-based UPI real-time payment systems
Indian residents in UAE can use their non-resident NRO and NRE accounts held in Indian banks linked to a UAE mobile number for UPI transactions
Maestro
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TRAP
Starring: Josh Hartnett, Saleka Shyamalan, Ariel Donaghue
Director: M Night Shyamalan
Rating: 3/5
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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City's slump
L - Juventus, 2-0
D - C Palace, 2-2
W - N Forest, 3-0
L - Liverpool, 2-0
D - Feyenoord, 3-3
L - Tottenham, 4-0
L - Brighton, 2-1
L - Sporting, 4-1
L - Bournemouth, 2-1
L - Tottenham, 2-1
The specs
Engine: 3.0-litre six-cylinder turbo
Power: 398hp from 5,250rpm
Torque: 580Nm at 1,900-4,800rpm
Transmission: Eight-speed auto
Fuel economy, combined: 6.5L/100km
On sale: December
Price: From Dh330,000 (estimate)
Abu Dhabi GP schedule
Friday: First practice - 1pm; Second practice - 5pm
Saturday: Final practice - 2pm; Qualifying - 5pm
Sunday: Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi Grand Prix (55 laps) - 5.10pm
The%20Roundup%20%3A%20No%20Way%20Out
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In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
EXPATS
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The biog
Place of birth: Kalba
Family: Mother of eight children and has 10 grandchildren
Favourite traditional dish: Al Harees, a slow cooked porridge-like dish made from boiled cracked or coarsely ground wheat mixed with meat or chicken
Favourite book: My early life by Sheikh Dr Sultan bin Muhammad Al Qasimi, the Ruler of Sharjah
Favourite quote: By Sheikh Zayed, the UAE's Founding Father, “Those who have no past will have no present or future.”