MUMBAI: Tata Motors has launched its newest addition to the passenger vehicle family – The Tiago NRG. It has extended the Tiago brand with an all-new SUV inspired vehicle, positioned as the ‘Urban Toughroader’.

Tata Motors CEO and MD Guenter Butschek said, “In line with our brand promise ‘Connecting Aspirations’, we want to be in sync with the growing trend of bringing to market more SUV like vehicles. With this launch, we are extending the Tiago brand and increasing our presence by entering into newer segments and tapping new sets of buyers. This launch is a step towards our Turnaround 2.0 journey, as we continue to focus on winning sustainably’ in the PV business.”

The company does not want to limit the brand to a set demographic and target audience and rather aims to appeal to audiences in big cities and small towns.

Tata Motors head of marketing for passenger cars Vivek Srivatsa expects the festive season to perform well considering that the last two months have been slow for the market. “We expect a catch up to happen between October-December,” he said.

On the distribution front, the car will be available with 300 dealers and another 300 EOS (extension outlets) to tap in a large set of audience across 300 towns in India. 

The marketing campaign for the car is scheduled to go live from October with an extensive use of TV, print, digital and selective OOH. Srivatsa believes in the power of OOH as it will enable them to highlight the look of the car.

In order to tap into more customers during the festive season, Tata Motors is set to launch a hatchback and a sedan within the next three months.

The formerly launched Tiago stands in the top 10 brands in the country. The car has a market share of around 10 per cent as of 2018 and has grown steadily from a customer base of 3000 per month to 8000 per month.

While manual cars are often the most bought, people are increasingly choosing automatic cars as it allows them to drive with ease. Although Tiago NRG does not have an automatic variant yet, Srivatsa mentions that the company will look at the market response for the car and then decide on whether it is a viable option to launch an automatic variant of the car or not.

The earlier launched Tiago cars do come in an automatic variant and interestingly, 20 per cent of Tiago cars on road are automatic. The company is positive and bets big on automatic cars as the way ahead.

Powered by the 1.2L Revotron petrol engine and the 1.05L Revotorq diesel engine, the Tiago NRG will be available with 5-speed manual transmission. It will come in three attractive colour options – Malabar Silver, Canyon Orange and Fuji White, with dual tone infinity black roof and roof rails.  The car is priced at Rs 5.49 lakh for the petrol version and Rs 6.31 lakh for the diesel version, ex-showroom Delhi.

Tiago NRG will have to face stiff completion from Hyundai and Toyota who have similar cars in the market that are priced between Rs 5.5-8 lakh.