Sujan Roy is the Head of International Business, Passenger Vehicles, at Tata Motors. Before joining Tata Motors, Roy was the General Manager-Product Marketing for Volkswagen in India, head of planning for Honda in India and Senior Brand Manager at Scorpio.
Roy, who is currently in Nepal for the NADA Auto Show, spoke to Onlinekhabar about Tata’s new H5 model and his aspirations from the Nepali market.
Excerpts:
What has Tata brought to this year’s NADA Auto Show?
We’ve brought in the H5 with a legendary DNA. The DNA we’re talking about is the Land Rover D8 platform, which is a proven platform, which is clearly world-class. Thanks to Tata Motor’s acquisition of Jaguar Land Rover brand a few years back, we have been able to do this. That will definitely help us stand out in the Nepali market.
How would you describe the H5?
The H5 is the first product which uses components from the Jaguar Land Rover platform and that is what gives us an edge. I’m sure that when an SUV lover sits inside the H5 and travels on all sort of roads, they will be able to feel the difference.
Another thing that stands out in this car is the long wheelbase which is identical to a Land Rover Discovery. The legroom is tremendous, the front space is tremendous and also the boot space. All these come from the legendary DNA.
What other things have you inherited from the Land Rover?
We have also inherited the terrain response system. There is a dial on the dashboard where you can customise the performance of the car based on the terrain you’re driving on. It gives the car additional capability on rough and tough roads. So this is a distinct advantage as you don’t need to spend extra on four-wheel drives. That also increases fuel efficiency and decreases repair cost as compared to our competitors.
Another key aspect is we have also inherited a state of the art infotainment system. JBL infotainment system is only found in the most expensive vehicles, but we realised that people in Nepal and India too liked a good audio system in their cars so we decided to add it.
Would you call the H5 a piece of art then?
Yes, it is. It is an art or as I like to call it a mother preparing a new dish for her children with a lot of love and a lot of hope. It’s like saying have a slice of this cake and tell me if you like it or not because Nepal has always been our most important export market. It’s the first market that Tata motors bring its cars and for us, the voice of the Nepali customers is very important. We want to hear what the people have to say. We want to make better cars for people here in Nepal.
We feel that the Nepali customers are one step ahead of the Indian customers because of exposure to different brands, the terrain where they drive the cars and lastly the Nepal customers have a unique sense of style, which is far more advanced.
Last year, you launched Tata Nexon which appealed to the younger people. Is the target customer different for the H5?
With the H5, we’re looking at slightly older customers than Nexon. We are realising that it is part of the global trend even in Europe and America: you will see that people are moving away from the sedans and hatchbacks and moving into SUVs.
We realised that Nepal is such a beautiful country where people love to travel around, it makes sense to have an SUV because it is more practical as it can take to the toughest places. We felt that these customers might want to upgrade from their sedans and hatchbacks to a new SUV.
What has been initial feedback from customers?
The feedback has been positive. The response in India has been great as we have sold over 10,000 cars and here too we were receiving good feedback. People feel that the prices are competitive and aggressive as the car is priced at Rs 5.6 million.
Do you have any plan to bring other cars to Nepal?
We wanted to bring another car, the Tata Altros. But we felt it would be better to launch it in a few months. We have many cars we want to bring to Nepal in the next year. I don’t want to talk about it as it will kill the surprise later on. Another thing I want to tell the people in Nepal is we will be launching many electric vehicles by the end of this year.
How tough is it to brand EVs in Nepal?
The problem with EVs is that we know it is the future, but we don’t know when they will be dominant. It will happen sooner or later; but in the interim period, you have to have petrol, diesel, LPG and CNG cars. For now, electric is just an option we want to have in the market. I want to tell people here in Nepal be prepared for an electric future.
Will the cars be hybrid or fully electric?
Fully electric. Even though the hybrid is a fascinating thing, we believe that the future needs to be all-electric. Hybrid is a half-way house. As the world is going all-electric, we too want to do that.
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