It is hard to quantify how big a leap Maruti was in the 80s and early 90s for the Indian middle class.
The reliability jump from a Fiat rebadged as a Premier Padmini("If there's no oil under it, there's no oil in it") to a Maruti 800 was world changing. The Ambassador was reliable, but maintenance heavy & the Contessa was ridiculously expensive to maintain. Plus they were the first cars to come out with the "normal stick shift" with synchromesh instead of the steering shift bar which required way more delicate balancing of the throttle.
Also the service center distribution along with the dead simple 3-cylinder configuration meant that every bike or truck mechanic had enough tools to "fix it up" to drive to the nearest service station. And the parts were cheap because everyone bought one (the monsoon season was different from a car, than a rain-coat on a bajaj).
The entirety of the scenes playing around me those years was literally identical - went from Bajaj Chetak to a Maruti 800, then an additional Kinetic Honda for the wife and the kids buying a Scooty or a Pulsar.
That doesn't mean a VW in India is made to the same standards as it is in Europe, either. What's the best out?
The discriminatory quality of International brands for their products in India has been the norm since globalisation started in the country, be it Colgate toothpaste or Ford Fiesta, most of it boils down to manufacturer building locally what the market is willing to pay.
The opposite is true as well, our export products from fruits to vehicles are of superior quality than what is available for local consumers. Again , it's w.r.t what the market is willing to pay.
I regret that the safety standards on vehicles in the country are appalling, at-least things started to change last year with Tata & Mahindra cars getting good ratings in GLOBAL NCAP[1] for the first time. I hope the COVID impact on the automobile sector, doesn't revert the progress.
I presume this is the case with all the developing economies.
You do get top notch, safe vehicles as well, it is just that most Indians dont consider the marginal safety worth the price.
In practice, the waiting period for any variant with safety features other than the top speced would be "over 6 months, no gaurentees". ie: as a customer, I was forced to buy the top end variant -- with alloy wheels, chrome trim and all sorts of other crap which I did not care about because I wanted the safety features.
I think that maruti is using safety features as a way to upsell customers who care about safety. The difference isn't a "marginal cost". For some models, the difference is 30% the cost of the car.
Coincidently, my ancestors lived in tea plantation estates, worked under British longer than most of my country men until the estates were bought by the Tatas and Birlas.
So here are my two cents for good tea in India - You can get good tea in plantation estates at almost any outlet, but obviously great tea like anything else is of export quality and it's fairly easy to get if you know the right person in the tea factory at the estate. Fun fact, no tea sold in the market is 100% just tea, they are the mix of tea and lot of other stuff which shall remain unknown to enjoy a good cup of tea.
And fewer than they would probably cause themselves if transplanted directly in to the other system because of their mismatched expectations!
https://old.reddit.com/r/india/comments/jd7x93/kia_seltos_an...
Many car makers also do full imports and CKD units for some their lines in India.
If safety is your primary concern I would recommend a fully imported Volvo, while they don't have the Honda, ford or Suzuki kind of service depth , most major cities do have one. Parts occasionally need to be imported. While it may cost a bit more money and time, there is no hassle of paperwork for you.
If reliability is the primary decision point, there are plenty of choices depending on how much city/Highway/rural you want to do, also depends on size, power etc
In fact, in many ways India can already be said to have UPI. "Farmers" (verified or not, typically rural) have free electricity, fertilizer subsidy, regular loan waivers, ... which were instituted as compensation for a broken market that benefit political cronyism.
This also has the 'benefit' of laundering bribes, without taxes - indeed, a joke about the family of previous Chief Minister of Karnataka (capital: Bengaluru) was that they grew gold in their farms!
Excise on petroleum import affects nearly everyone. I am not only talking about income tax.
Other than this, the soap or detergent or even everyday products we use, contain imported active ingredients and they are taxed at some duty which brings up its price, manufacturer simply adds their own profit margin on top of their costs and passed it onto customers.
Even if most in India have never made payment to customs department, they've still paid considerable sum as indirect duty charged included into product pricing.
If you can just show it to people how much cheaper things will get, they'll give you a chance. This is because Indian voter is very unsophisticated, he will buy your promise atleast once to see if you can really help them by reducing prices.
2 issues.
As stated in another comment, most of the income taxes / import taxes etc affect a tiny fraction of the population. Not really a huge voter base there. Influential and disproportionately powerful - but not enough to swing elections I think.
Also these taxes fund a huge number of programs that will need to be cut down or cancelled which will affect a lot of people (who don't necessarily make enough to pay income taxes). Not really something that any government can do in good conscience if they want to hold power.
How can this be true? Nearly everyone needs petrol or diesel or gas, and government has increased exise duty on petroleum import which affects almost everyone in the country!
And custom duties also affect others, today if you go to buy a tool - you'll either find Chinese import or some very expensive foreign make tool or crap Indian make tool in most of the case. People need those tools, they'll benefit from low import duties.
Yes but most people aren't aware how taxes affect them even if they aren't directly paying any custom duty or income tax, custom duty is being charged to them indirectly (they pay for a product where the importer adjusts the price according to costs of which custom duty is a part)
Also the prices of fuel directly affects only vehicle owners who are tiny part of the population. It affects everyone else a lot only indirectly, so people don't really complain.
You'll be able to milk rich if there are more mercedes on road, they'll need more repairmen or mechanics, you can be one and charge them for everything.
Right now in India, ultra rich proportionally pay less taxes because of various instruments available to them which aren't feasible to be used by middle class people.
We should shift our focus and let them spend their money, it will end up in one of the countrymen's pocket either way.
Most traffic in India is very speed limited, there is no snow or ice in most parts of India.
Many of the safety concerns are perhaps overblown given the very different driving scenario. A bigger problem would be your actual driving skills, unless you take the national highways regularly travelling long distances.
I once took a cab from DEL to Gurgaon. The driver drove up an offramp of the (then) NH-8, along the shoulder against the flow of incoming traffic, and then exited via an onramp. And then they were surprised that I didn't tip them despite this efficient shortcut.
(It may be apocryphal, but fun story/business lesson (think that's where I heard it) regardless. Edit if I find it.)
I was once a passenger in a car going fairly fast on a two lane autobahn. A Trabant [1] in front started trying to overtake a truck at the same time that a Porsche 911 doing probably 250km/h was coming up behind us. Nobody hit anything else but it came fairly close.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_electric_cars_currentl...
A car being made entirely out of a strong material does not necessarily make it safe, either. Modern vehicles with good safety ratings are made out of many different types of material of various strengths in different locations. https://www.media.volvocars.com/global/en-gb/media/photos/34...
Like any engineering project, design is more important than materials used.
So battery costs about 4000 and lasts around 4 years. So I drive 60km, 6 days a week, say 45 weeks. So thats about .06 Rs per km.
Tyres last about 70k km, and cost 18k to change all 4, so thats another .25 Rupees per km.
So total cost is about .8 Rupees per km, including battery and tyres.
Or about 1 US cents per km.
I drive 60 km a day total, and have been doing so for past 12 years, commuting to work.
I keep meticulous record of my costs,and the average maintenance for the car comes to around .55 Rupees per km. Less than 1 US cent.
Their cars have a reputation of being reliable and their spares are cheap.
Truly a remarkable success story in India.