Car firms riding on AUV craze

Local car companies are racing against one another to tap the increasingly lucrative high-end Asian Utility Vehicle (AUV) market, especially now that government has dropped its plan to lift the exemption of vehicles with a seating capacity of 10 or more from paying excise taxes.

Isuzu Philippines Corp. yesterday beat the competition by being the first to launch its high-end Crosswind XUV.

Isuzu executive vice president Hiroshi Ishino said the Crosswind XUV is still basically an AUV, but is targeted mainly for the high-end market.

"The Crosswind XUV plans to eat into the market of passenger cars rather than into the more luxurious sports utility vehicles (SUVs)," Ishino said

Statistics show, Ishino said, that sporty AUVs now account for 40 percent of the total AUV market.

In 2000, passenger car sales accounted for 34 percent of the market compared to AUV’s share of just 29 percent. In 2001, however, data showed that the passenger car market went down to 31 percent, while the share of the AUV segment went up to 34 percent.

Ishino expects Isuzu to sell at least 400 units of AUVs a month this year.

Meanwhile, Nissan Motor Philippines president and chief executive officer Jack H. F. Wu said Nissan is also planning to introduce sometime this year – its own QRV Serena.

The QRV would compete more with the higher end sports utility vehicle such as the Honda CRV.