Maruti Suzuki Proves Affordable Cars Can Be Safe With 2024 Dzire

Produced in India, it starts at Rs 679,000 ($8,046 at the current exchange rate). Although it is only 4 meters (157.5 inches) long, with a 2.45 m (96.5 in) wheelbase, turning such a compact and cheap car into a safe machine is a major engineering accomplishment. It would be easier to achieve that with a larger and more expensive vehicle. At the same time, the Dzire makes us wonder when automakers forgot how to make affordable vehicles. In India, it (thankfully) seems they didn't, even if $8,000 is a bit more than three times the GDP per capita in India, currently around $2,500. Although it would be a bargain in most markets, it is not that cheap where it is manufactured. The deal is that India has preserved its industrial capacity, as I have recently discussed in a series of articles.

In their pursuit to lower production costs, most carmakers decide to sell models conceived for Europe or Japan in developing countries instead of developing projects specifically for these markets. As these developed-country models are frequently expensive to build, the easy way to make them affordable is to decontent them. That once led me to write about second-class lives, meaning that your safety relied on where you lived.

The example I used at the time was that of the last Ford Ka. Developed and designed in Brazil as a world car, it would be sold in Europe as the Ka+. Ironically, the Brazilian vehicles lacked side-impact door beams, which led it to a shameful zero-star rating in a Latin NCAP test. In 2019, Ford "fixed" that by adding lower-side protection bars to the front doors and a beam in the roof to make the cabin less prone to deforming. The rear doors still lacked any sort of protection. The European vehicle had the lower and upper door beams, as well as more cabin reinforcements. At least Brazilians could buy it, right?

Maruti Suzuki is not a global player like Ford. It started its life as a joint venture between Suzuki and the government of India. Eventually, the Indian government turned it into a public company, selling its shares to Suzuki. Although several models are common to those in the Japanese carmaker's lineup, the Dzire is exclusive to the Indian market – even if it was born as a Swift sedan derivative. That is probably what helped Maruti Suzuki change course when it comes to safety.

The company was often accused of making unsafe cars in India. They were lighter than the Japanese models on which they were based. Although that helped them save on fuel, it also compromised crashworthiness. The outgoing Dzire model only achieved two stars in its crash test, which shows how much progress the new model made.

The 2024 Dzire offers six airbags and Electronic Stability Control (ESC) as standard, but its body is the main demonstration of how an affordable car can be safe. Its footwell area and bodyshell were considered stable, something that the former Dzire did not offer. In a crash, they deformed, which could trap, severely hurt, or even kill its occupants. Hopefully, Maruti Suzuki will equal or even better the standards the new Dzire established in future cars.

Whether it does that or not, the new five-star model shows that affordability and safety can walk hand in hand. If that is only possible with local engineers, so be it. They may borrow world platforms in the process if that helps cut development costs, but they should also be given the chance to conceive something safe, easy to fix, and cheap to produce, adequate to the markets they should know better than anyone else. If that were not profitable, Maruti Suzuki would not have done it – or at least we expect that to be the case. Rivian and Lucid are burning money with every car they sell in the hope that they will be profitable one day. In the worst-case scenario, they are praying to have time to develop models that are actually meant to make money instead of being solely expensive business cards.

By decontenting projects meant for other markets, automakers have resorted to a lazy engineering process that is only interested in complying with feeble local laws, some of which do not respect even the United Nations (UN) vehicle regulations to reinforce car safety, which are considered the bare minimum for safe vehicles. Carmakers often say mandatory global regulations would make their businesses impossible in some countries. The Dzire proved that this is not true. However, local development is not a silver bullet.

People frequently point out that the secret of the success of some new car companies, such as BYD and Tesla, is verticalization. That means that they produce most of the components their cars will need. These folks forget that successful verticalization is what helped, not the idea itself. Henry Ford also tried to do that and eventually realized suppliers were a better call. When it comes to safety and affordability, localizing development also seems to be the best way to go – as long as you have a good engineering team, as Maruti Suzuki seems to have. Whether competitors will be able to follow the same steps is up to them. The automotive industry may just thank (or curse) the Indian carmaker for proving it is possible. Customers everywhere should do the former.