Tata launched the Zest, this month, in a bid to regain some of the lost momentum, including market share that the company had lost in the last few years. Now this much-awaited compact sedan, first in the segment to feature an AMT transmission, already commands a waiting period of two to three months due to the high demand.
Tata Motors have received about 25,000 enquiries for the Zest so far and will officially reveal the initial booking figure soon. The Tata Zest XMA F-Tronic is the model which gets the AMT (automated manual transmission). What is special about this AMT variant of the Zest is the new gearbox that it is equipped with. The automated manual transmission enables drivers to shift gears automatically or switch to manual shifting whenever they want. This feature has been introduced first in a compact sedan segment car by Tata Motors in India. The first in the mid-size segment was Maruti Suzuki with the Celerio.
It's not just the Zest but the AMT Celerio which also has a long waiting period as this gearbox is currently being imported from Magneto Marelli. We feel, the companies should have tried to correctly analyse the demand for the AMT cars to avoid this waiting period that only upsets prospective buyers.
Nevertheless, Magneto Marelli plans to localise the AMT transmission production in our country by next year which might mean more AMT variants can be provided to their customers without a long waiting period. Let’s hope Tata also comes up with a similar solution as it has extensive plans to equip some more cars from their existing line-up with the AMT like the Nano, the upcoming Bolt and later other cars from their line-up.
Source: ETAuto
