Tata Motors has already showcased the Altroz premium hatchback at the 2019 Geneva Motor Show. The company had also stated that the expected launch timeline for the Altroz was mid 2019, or around the festive season of India. Tata will debut the ALFA ARC platform with Altroz, which in turn will make this upcoming premium hatchback shed a lot of weight. The same platform will also be seen on the upcoming H2X (Hornbill) micro SUV from the brand. Now the company has stated that the two cars will share around 70% of the parts between them, despite them being tow completely different cars. This will help Tata bring down the production costs of the two cars by a significant margin.
Guenter Butschek, the CEO of Tata Motors spoke to a leading magazine and had this to say about the platform and parts sharing between company’s vehicles,
We have built our future portfolio on two new architectures. First is called the ALFA (Advanced Light Flexible Agile) architecture, which we have for all our top heads from 3.7 to 4.2 metres. And 4.5 m and above is what we called the OMEGA (Optimal Modular Efficient Global Advanced) architecture, which is actually a carryover of the Range Rover discovery platform. We have 12-14 top heads in these two architectures, which will have a high degree of commonality. But products will all be significantly different. This is the whole trick because the higher my commonality is based on modality, higher my economies of scale. Altroz is a premium hatch and H2X is a small-size SUV. What if I tell you that these two vehicles have a commonality of more than 70%? We will build economies of scale delivering commonality but in order to bring differentiation, design plays a crucial role. It is all about love at first sight. The ‘love effect’ will come if it looks different and if it’s aspirational and desirable. Our products are going to be feature packed. The features provided will make our products more aspirational for our customers and won’t be there for the sake of adding a gimmick. Features for the sake of safety, convenience, and comfort—this is our strategy.
Altroz had already been spied on Indian roads and the brand had also posted the images of the upcoming Altroz, at least partially. Upon launch in India Tata Altroz will lock horns with Maruti Suzuki Baleno, Hyundai Elite i20 and the Honda Jazz. As per the trend witnessed lately in Tata’s new vehicles, Altroz too seems like a car from the future and it will be based on the IMPACT 2.0 design philosophy of the brand.
Talking of Tata Hornbill, it will take on Mahindra KUV100 and Maruti Ignis in India. This micro SUV will sit below Nexon in company’s lineup and will be placed as value-for-money product. There are hopes that the public may get to see the production model of H2X at the 2020 Auto Expo in India and as far as the launch goes it is slated for a 2020 launch in India. The IMPACT 2.0 styling of the brand will arm it with good looks and the under hood department may see the micro-SUV featuring the same petrol engine seen on Tata Tiago in the Indian market.
