After a long wait, Tata Motors has finally launched the Zest, its all-new compact sedan. The company is launching a new product after a gap of four years and given that the company’s performance in the domestic market has been under a lot of pressure in the recent past, a lot depends on the success of the Zest.
The Zest base 1.2 litre petrol variant starts at Rs.4.64 lakh while the base 1.3 litre diesel variant starts at Rs.5.64 lakh. Zest is available in four trims in petrol — XE, XM, XMS and XT and five trims in diesel, including XE, XM, XMS, XMA (AMT) and XT. The top-end petrol is priced at Rs.5.99 lakh and the top-end diesel at Rs.6.99 lakh. All prices are ex-showroom Delhi.
According to the company, ARAI has certified that the 1.2 litre petrol delivers 17.6 km per litre while the diesel delivers 23 km per litre.
The car comes in six colours — Buzz Blue, Venetian Red, Sky Grey, Duen Beige, Platinum Silver and Pristine White.
Speaking at the launch, Ranjit Yadav, President, Passenger Vehicle Business Unit, Tata Motors, said “This is the first of our offerings and we will bring in two vehicles per year over the next three years. With 29 segment-first features, the Zest is the first all-new vehicle in the Horizonext journey with our commitment to bringing disruptive innovation to this segment of car-buyers.”
The Zest Diesel AMT will have dual drive modes — City and Sport Mode — while the petrol comes with Sports mode, city mode and eco mode.
The cars will be on sale from Tuesday.
Zest is being manufactured at the Fiat-Tata Motors joint venture facility at Ranjangaon near Pune. It is available across 160 dealerships and the company recruited more than 3,000 people and trained more than 2,000, Mr. Yadav said.
The company also launched an industry-first service offering with ‘333 confidence’. This includes a warranty of three years of 1 lakh km, an annual maintenance contract of three years or 45,000 km and a free 24X7 roadside assistance service for three years.
The compact sedan category is seeing good growth momentum, according to Mr. Yadav. Zest will compete with cars like Honda’s Amaze, Maruti’s Dzire and Hyundai’s Xcent.
