Fiat Linea

The much awaited Fiat Linea based on the grand Punto platform has finally arrived. Much to the relief of eager customers, who have booked the cars even before the prices have been announced- such is the anticipation with which the car has been received. Touted as competition to the Fiesta, SX4, Verna and Honda City G3 the Linea beats them with its commanding presence and feature packed offering.

The Linea comes to India after a hiatus of almost 6 years with no new vehicle launches by Fiat India, so the excitement of a new product is palpable. With the Palio launch in 2002, with the upgrades in 2003, and the Stile launch in 2005 and the MJD launch in 2008, the Palio has seen a mild transformation between engines and facelifts.

The Linea on the other hand is going to be a rocker. With showrooms clambering to display the product, and with fiat delaying the official word on the cost till its “official” launch on Jan 14th 2009, the Linea will be the most important product for 2009- because Fiat needs a success. Fiat has also gone all out to ensure this- with the Fiat – Tata tie up for sales and service, and the ramping up of the distribution network for spares, the company is ensuring that they do not fall along where they have failed before.

The Car:
Exteriors – the Fiat comes with rather bold body lines. Made it Europe is written all over, with its huge grill, stylized headlights and large tail lamps, the linea has some of the most exciting lines. The finish of the body panels is quite nice and the car appears to be firmly planted with the standard 15” wheels. The ground clearance in the showroom looks ok, but how this fares in the real world will need to be tested.

The Engine: The Linea comes with the tried and tested 1.3Multi Jet Diesel, however, what sets it apart from the rest of the herds of Swifts, dZirs, Palios and Vistas is the fact that Fiat has re-engineered the engine to include a VGT turbo, thus, allowing for a more liner delivery of power, as opposed to a turbo kick at about 1450 RPM. The VGT thus allows for a better squeeze, and this mill is able to push out about 20.4 Kgm at a decent 1750 rpm. Now, that is pretty impressive, considering its only a 1.3L engine. Power wise, critics admit that an additional 10bhp to push it over the three digit figure of 100+bhp would have been nice, but the car must be test driven to check the handling and the power. The linea 1.3mjd comes with 90bhp being pushed out at about 4000rpm.

Interiors- the car now takes the interiors to a completely different level. It would appear as though this is the first car in its price bracket (expected to be about 8L) to come with rear vents and a sun screen for the rear windshield. The quality of plastics in the interior are a class apart, and the technology packed into the onboard computer makes it a car supercomputer. The Blue & Me technology co developed with Microsoft and Fiat allows for all windows based mobile phones to sync up to the car and be voice activated, thus allowing for a safer driving experience. The car also syncs with most phones featuring PDAs and allows for the phone book to be transferred to the car computer, thereby allowing the driver to control the phone book from the steering remote. The display screen niftily shows the fuel efficiency, CD track being played and name of the person calling, once all the features have been setup. Now- that’s pretty powerful.
The seating positions are pretty nice, except the initial feeling of lack of space is soon wiped away. The large windscreen gives one a commanding view and the height adjustable seat allows for drivers of most sizes to drive comfortably. The boot is HUGE to say the least and the nicest feature is that the hinges are attached to the body and not inside controlled pneumatically, thus allowing for greater loading space and better control.

The Linea comes with two engines ; the 1.3 mjd and the 1.4liter 8V Petrol. The petrol pushes out about 77ps at 6000rpm, thus on paper appearing to be a little underpowered, however, how it fares in the real world needs to be seen. The versions are the Active, Dynamic and Emotion. The Dynamic and Emotion come with Packs as well that has the Blue&Me and Airbags. However, all cars (Except Active) come with ABS, but lack EBD and Airbags can be added, thus increasing the safety ratings of these cars. Fiat is also putting in a lot in terms of product assurances, the standard warranty is 2 years and 80K kms and the extended is 4 years and 1.5L Kms. The Diesel mill is expected to have an oil change every 15K kms and parts for the car have already started coming in, thus spares shouldn’t be the bottleneck for this car.

Overall – the package appears to be good! However, if the performance lives up to the hype created and fiat is able to deliver on the service front, we might have a winner on our hands.

strikes and the economy

a strike is usually associated with trade unions- when they disagree with the owners on certain aspects. however, this has filtered its way into mainstream life with a strike being called from everything to anything.
there is a truck strike currently on.
http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2009/01/06/stories/2009010652150500.htm

“AIMTC, the body which had called the strike, claimed that the first day of the strike was successful. Spokesperson of AIMTC, Mr N.L. Gupta, said, “The first day of the strike call has been successful. In Maharashtra, eight lakh trucks went off the road, causing a loss of Rs 800 crore.”

How can you measure a sucessful strike with a loss of 800 crores in a single day? How different is this from stealing or from any other activity? Is Mr. Gupta happy with the fact that the economy and the truck drivers lost so much money?

I just don’t get this logic. During an economic scenario like what exists currently, I really don’t believe that calling strikes and causing more irreversible damage like this is going to help. I guess this is why no MNC is looking at india as a Manufacturing base- simply because the logistics is no match to China. and we have bodies such as the AIMTC helping justify the cause.

Bovine intervention – the year 2008

The year 2008 started on a rather sober note for me and my wife. our first new years as a married couple.. we went to bed at a glorious 11pm… so much for an exciting life!

As a new years resolution, i decided to very consciously cut down my non vegetarian intake – that included a multitude of critters (avian and mammal! 🙂 )

it worked quite well for a long time, then i substituted my meat intake with other fatty foods and reduced it quite a bit.

Jan 2008- my first time as a track official at the JK Tyre national racing championships 2008.

February 2008 – i moved team in my company. It was a sad move – i really enjoyed my old team, the kind of work and the learnings. However, the new team had its own challenges and most importantly it was a different learning.


June – finally bought my cycle! 🙂 yes! the trek 4300D.. i was lusting over it for a long time, and finally dcided to take the plunge and buy it. so that was and is the BIGGEST purchase for the year! however, the bike is worth every bit of the $560 odd i paid for it. Its such a pleasure to ride and miles get chomped off. I guess from the date of purchase till date – i have done over 1000kms (guestimate)

July4th – I cycled to work for the first time on a working day. I usually attempted the ride on a satuarday or a holiday.. it was nice .. and different. ever since then, i decided to start peddling to work every friday (we got to wear jeans on those days)

July 31st – my last day at Cognizant. As much as it was a different life, I did not think i would miss it. Yes, I did and do miss the comfort and safety net of a regular paying job. I finally was taking the plunge that i had always dreamed of doing. Starting up. I guess I must thank (at this point) all my friends, well wishers and managers at Cognizant who taught me a lot.

August 1st – Launch of Virtu Technologies ! Wow!

October 2008 – we finally get our accountant to do our billing – and guess what- we ARE profitable from the start. quite a nice feeling – being a scrooge helps!

november 2008 – still profitable .. sizeable client roster. lot of work keeping us busy.

December 2008 – our 3rd employee comes on board. nice feeling.

December 31st 2035 hrs – my first blog about the past year! 🙂

Lets see what 2009 holds.

the frustrations of tele marketing

one of the greatest inventions of time is email. simply because it helps spread the word! 🙂
now, almost everyone in india would have been besieged with calls from various banks offering “special” packages and the bells and whistles.

I got this forward, which had me laughing on the floor- and for Gunjan Agarwal – i do feel bad! 🙂 but it was simply hillarious! 🙂

Enjoy!

Incase the above does not play – here is the link to the file:
http://yourlisten.com/channel/content/22768/Frustrations for telemarketing

Subaru pulling out of WRC

well, this past few weeks have been heart breaking. First – honda pulling out of F1- which is heartbreaking in itself, but to top it off, the WRC is also taking a beating!

Suzuki announced that it is pulling out of the WRC – considering it started the season in 2008 with the new SX4 WRC. But the announcement of Subaru pulling out, causes a LOT more heartbreak!

Subaru in collaboration with ProDrive might be one of the longest surviving constructors in the WRC, with the others entering and exiting at vrious stages. The imperza WRX STi- a truly rally bred car is now no longer going to blaze the paths of the various stages.

Collin McRae and Peter Solberg -2 WRC champions….
three constructors titles in 1995, 1996 & 1997. Post 1997 Subaru has always seen a podium finish but never a top spot. The era of the hatches (The 206s & Citroens) started their rules.. with the Mitsubishi Evos also falling on the wayside.

I do hope the plan to stay out of the WRC is reversed soon…

Can the handheld replace a PC?

A constant debate that rages on is whether the hand held, be it a palm top, a PDA or even a mobile phone, replace the PC (reference here to the notebook or occasional desktop)?

Yes, it will take over a lot of functions, and to that matter, might really help the user organize their life better, but can a user just live with their mobile device? In my opinion – no. There is a great dependence on the computer, either in the form of the notebook or desktop. There is a greater inclination towards mobility and hence the notebook might score more points over the desktop, however, there will always be a requirement for a pivotal point in ones life, and that will be the computer.

Technologically, the handheld (again, my opinion) will be able to bring a certain amount of processing power to the the user, however, there is a limit in the capabilities of this processing power. a whole new platform needs to be created to achieve the same level of technological competence that has been achieved on the PC Platform over 20 years. To that effect, the same platform has achieved quite a lot in this short span of time.

The iPhone heralded in a new era, some agree, some dont, but I believe that this one platform has enabled a host of creativity unleashed, that was similar to the windows 95/98 application era. The users crave applications that can take care of their particular needs, be it an excercise regime creator or simply sudoku – but the bottom line is there is a market for demand and thus there will be supply.

With the ICE age of the mobile phone approaching and moreso even peaking (the Information, Communication and Entertainment) the dependence on the mobile device to carry out one’s primary goal of information gathering will replace a user’s dependence on the PC, however, for most other purposes and record keeping, the PC will still rule.

Mediocracy?

We had to get a new electrical line fixed in our office, because the previous one was a high tension line, and we were asked to pay some ridiculous amounts of money in order to sort out something which even the service provider couldnt figure out. So on request to our landlord, he got the issue sorted.

Sometime i have to thank my landlord, who looks after us like a guardian angel. He’s always been there to get things sorted out, and has always extended a helping hand at situations which require some intervention.

However, thats a different story.

The electrician was to setup a new connection, he’s got 2 flunkies to help him out. one guy has to close the junction boxes, sees some loose wire, instead of putting it back, pulls it out and puts the cover back. the bolt is not fitting in – hammer it in… and a complete disregard to all other forms of respect in the work place. you wonder if this is how it has filtered in.

A technician comes home to service anything, they will ask you for cloth to dust, or for an extension cord to plug in their appliances- cant it not be drilled in that if they are going to the customer’s location, take what ever is required.

Everyone appears to need lessons in service management.

Frustration seeping in!

Well, last friday, I took a whole 40 minutes to traverse a combined distance of 1.2 Kms from my house to my office. This was the heights of frustration, and it really got me thinking asto what the hell is going on here?
the road on which I stay, has been a quite residential neighborhood. We used to burst crackers during diwali on the roads, now its reached such an absymal state that it takes anyone a good 3 minutes plus to just cross the road. Now to compound things further, the great authorities are setting up a median / road divider, which has already cut down the road by 1 more foot!

so wher does that leave us? residents of the avenues, roads and most places to walk are impossible… it appears as though its a sin here to want to live in a quite residential neighbourhood.

there are cities that forbid public transport from entering residential areas, however, here, the scnene is quite different. public transport, coupled with schools and improper facilities seems to push the entire infrastructure beyond comprehensible size.

I wonder if I will ever see the day things improve.