22 — Centralian Advocate, Tuesday, October 29, 2013

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Indian Tata may giveChinese rivals curry

Offroad, the ruggedness and excellent wheel articulation of Tata Xenon makes it a standout ute

Joshua Dowling

THE Indian Tata brand hasthrown a Myna bird among thecheap Chinese pick-ups.

It has been recently relaunchedin Australia with a six-model uterange. The starting price bravelypitches the Tata at a premium.

Its warranty is three years/100,000km and the service inter-vals are 12 months or 15,000km,whichever comes first.

Roadside assistance is also freefor the first three years.

The Tata Xenon range is avail-able with one engine — a 2.2-litreturbo diesel — and one trans-mission, a five-speed manual —with a choice of 4x2 or a 4x4drivetrains.

The first 400 vehicles to arrivethis year do not have stabilitycontrol but they do come withanti-lock brakes. The stabilitycontrol equipped cars begin toarrive in January.

Payload capacity ranges from880kg for the dual cab to 1080kg forthe cab-chassis models. Towingcapacity is 2500kg for all models.

There are only two airbagsavailable as standard (as with theChinese ute rivals) and it isunclear when or if side impactairbags will be added.

The back seats do not haveadjustable head rests (and thereare only two fixed head cushions)and the centre seat has a lap-onlybelt. A rear camera, built-in sat-nav with touchscreen andBluetooth audio streaming areavailable on all models in ana cces s o r y package , whi leBluetooth and USB audio inputare standard across the range.

The highlight of the new Xenonis the Euro V compliant 2.2-litreturbo diesel engine designed andengineered in-house by Tata withexpert help from key suppliers.

On a preview drive in Mel-bourne this week ahead of theXenons showroom debut the en-gine proved to be a smooth andefficient operator.

Compared to other diesel utes —from mainstream as well asemerging brands — the TataXenon has almost no power delayfrom low revs and was relatively

refined and quiet, with good pull-ing power all the way through therev range. It is a genuine highlightof the car and bodes well for thefuture, when it gets installed intoan all-new architecture.

The five-speed manual had asturdy, direct shift action. Thebrakes were sound. Economy is animpressive 7.4L/100km and accel-eration was better than expectedpartly because the Xenon issmaller (and therefore lighter)than its newer rivals.

The interior is a little squeezy bymodern standards but not dissimi-lar to the previous generation utesfrom the mainstream brands.

Rear end grip is dicey in the wetand stability control can’t comesoon enough.

But, off-road, the Xenonsruggedness and excellent wheelarticulation means it can clamberover obstacles that would leavesome utes stranded.

The Tata Xenon will probably

find most favour on the farm atfirst, which is why the dealernetwork is initially focused onregional and rural areas.

Tata vehicles have been soldon and off in Australia since 1996after a Queensland distributorbegan importing them mainlyfor farm use.

There are an estimated 2500Tata heavy-duty pick-ups onAustralian roads already. Butthere are many more Indian-madecars on Australian roads, albeitwith foreign badges. More than34,000 Indian-made Hyundai i20hatchbacks and more than 10,000Indian-made Suzuki Alto smallcars have been sold in Australiaover the past four years, since 2009.

There is as yet no star-rating forcrash safety on the new Tata uterange. However, the new distrib-utor for Tata vehicles in Australiabelieves the origin of the vehicleswill be a competitive advantage.

‘‘There is no tougher place on

earth to test vehicles than on thetough and demanding roads ofIndia,’’ said the newly-appointeddistributor of Tata vehicles inAustralia, Darren Bowler, ofFusion Automotive.

Tata Motors — India’s largestautomobile company — acquiredJaguar and Land Rover from theFord Motor Company in June2008, in the grip of the GlobalFinancial Crisis.

The acquisition gave Tata ac-cess to Jaguar and Land Roverdesigners and engineers but Tatais yet to release an all-new modelwith their input.

The Tata Xenon ute was re-leased in 2009 and is also sold inSouth Africa, Brazil, Thailand, theMiddle East, Italy and Turkey.

The Australian versions of theXenon ute released are the firstright-hand drive models fittedwith dual airbags and a EuroV-compliant engine.

Solutionto poorvisibilityKarla Pincott

The STS system projects animage of the road ahead of the

truck being overtaken onto yourwindscreen

YOU can’t see around corners, butyou could be able to see throughtraffic in front of you in the future.

We’ve all experienced beingstuck behind a truck on thehighway, not able to see aroundthem to check if it’s safe toovertake — wishing vehicles couldbe made as invisible as JamesBond’s Aston Martin Vanquish inDie Another Day.

Researchers at a Portugueseuniversity have the answer — asystem that projects an image ofthe road ahead of that truck ontoyour own windscreen.

Called the STS (for See-Through System), it uses a set ofcameras and vehicle-to-vehiclecommunication to display the im-age as a virtual windscreen.

The team from the University ofPorto says STS uses low-latencyvideo streaming and dedicatedshort-range communicationto transmit the imagery swiftly,allowing the driver to seethrough the vehicle blocking theirline of vision.

It depends on the vehicle infront of you having the system’scameras installed, which thenwirelessly sends the footagein near real-time to a trans-parent monitor fitted on your ownwindscreen.

However, an increasing push isbeing made into vehicle-to-vehiclecommunication and the extrasafety it offers — with car-makers testing systems that warnfollowing traffic of accidents andother problems.

So invisible cars may not remainthe stuff of 007 daydreams.

White new king ofcar colour rainbowAFTER more than a decade as the world’sfavourite car colour, silver is falling inpopularity to white.

PPG Industries, the leading supplier ofautomotive paints, says 25 per cent of thevehicles it supplied in the 2013 model yearwere white, up 3 per cent from the prioryear. Silver and black tied for second, with18 per cent each.

White dominates in Europe, North Amer-ica and Asia. Only in South America issilver still king.

Apple Inc, with its all-white stores andgadgets, made white a hi-tech colour.

The variety of whites — from flat shadesto creamy pearls — is also contributing, saysJane Harrington, PPG’s manager of auto-motive colour styling.

But if you don’t relish a whiteout on thehighway, never fear.

Carmakers are currently scouting coloursfor the 2016 and 2017 model years, andHarrington is showing them some eye-popping options, from a pink-tinged brightred developed in Asia to a rich dark graywith faint green highlights.

Eleven different browns — from lightcopper to dark chocolate — and an equalnumber of grays are part of PPG’s annualcolour show for automakers at its automot-

ive centre in the Detroit suburb of Troy.There are six yellows and seven greens,from seafoam to dark olive.

One notable absence: Powder blue, whichis increasingly confined to electric cars orhybrids. Harrington and her internationalteam determine colour trends by watchingfashion, architectural paint colours andother predictors.

She thinks we’ll see more deep jewel toneslike teal and more earthy metallics, likereddish orange, in the coming years.

With the end of the recession, driversdon’t mind being showy again, she says.

Car buyers could also see taxi-like yellowsand other flat, bright colours, which aregrowing in popularity thanks to small,funky entries like the Kia Soul.

Pastel tones, like mint green and verylight pink, are also in the mix.

PPG will take its colour tour on the roadto Los Angeles, Europe and Asia and willthen start working with individualautomakers on their choices.

Companies typically choose eight to 10colours for every model. PPG won’t say howmany cars it supplies paint for each year,but it works with every major car company.

n From carsguide.com.au