Pakistan's Automobiles sector is a disaster.
Pakistan's Automobiles sector is a disaster.
Pakistan's auto sector industry is among the worst industries in the world at the moment, and it competes with the highest prices with other Asian countries; however, the quality is one of the worst in the world. If we look at the past, Pakistan had a very promising start with their auto sector.
In the 1950s, Ghandhara Motors started their manufacturing in Pakistan, and their prime focus was the buses, cars, and trucks. Moreover, Harron Industries followed the same approach and started manufacturing in Pakistan, and its prime focus was on Dodge cars.
Ali Autos and Wazir Ali Engineering changed into Sindh Engineering, which also started to invest and developed commercial cars and Ford passenger cars. Moreover, the Pakistan Army also developed several cars at that time, like the Nissan jeep and CJ-5. Coming to the 1990s, Pakistan's auto sector was considered one of the backbones of Pakistan's economy and started manufacturing Suzuki Mehran, other Suzuki models, and one of the most popular cars at the time in Pakistan called Khyber cars.
Now at present, Pakistan's auto sector industries are in such a bad state that even at times, people wonder why they are buying Pakistani-assembled cars, where they have better options to get refurbished cars, which have better quality, even are getting used by foreigners, build quality better and more safely than local-assembled cars.
Due to instability, inconsistent policies of past governments, and more unnecessary changes of recent governments, the auto sector has been dented. While looking at cross-border, they are now manufacturers of cars at very low cost, and Pakistan is downgraded to just car assembling and providing very substandard quality. Both recent governments and auto industries in Pakistan are to be blamed, as even the auto sector stopped investing in R&D (research and development) in their companies in Pakistan, and they are just doing day-to-day business and waiting for worse to happen.
Why do car accidents become deadly for Pakistanis?
In 2020, Ministry of Industries and Production secretary Afzal Latif revealed to the parliamentary committee that neither do they have any expertise to test the quality of assembled cars nor does the company test its quality according to the international standard. Therefore, companies have the license to give people a substandard quality.
Moreover, Pakistan signed a treaty in 2020 called WP.29 to regulate automobile quality according to international standards; however, it has not been implemented yet, and neither has any government worked on a framework.
Pakistani consumers are forced to drive substandard cars for many years; there are no safety checks by the company or the government, and there is no quality assurance or any kind of inspection on the car quality. For example, there was a recent accident of a Suzuki Alto in Pakistan, where the car allegedly hit, and all the family members died.
By looking at the quality of our cross-border countries, Maruti Suzuki Alto K10 has 2-star ratings for adult occupant protection from Global NCAP. Moreover, internationally, the Suzuki Alto has AEB (Autonomous Emergency Braking) and LSS (Lane Support System), which the locally assembled car did not have. Moreover, even used imported Alto of the Japanese version that are refurbished have both of these safety features.
There are many examples; for example, we can provide to our reader that in India, the Toyota Atlas had 7 airbags, an anti-theft engine immobilizer, and AEB. However, people will be surprised that even buying one of the most expensive Toyota Atlas in Pakistan, you will only get 2 airbags, let alone the rest of the features.
Massive price difference compared to India.
There is a massive price gap and quality if we compare car price and quality with India. In India, consumers can get a Suzuki Alto starting from 3.25 lac Indian Rupees; the conversion rate in Pakistani Rupees is 10 lac and 66 thousand approx., which you might not even get a used one in Pakistan. The price of a new Alto starts from 23 lac in Pakistan, and still, the people are paying more than double the price, and still, the quality is far below comparable with cross-border offers.
India quality is internationally tested, and our quality is not even tested by the company itself. For example, Toyota Corolla prices start from 60 lac in Pakistan, and India has discounted the model because it was an old technology-based car, and India now focuses on producing mid-range cars with 12-generation technology. Moreover, the Toyota 1.8 Grande you can buy in India in 2017, model at less than Indian 10 lac, converted into PKR, it is around 32 lac around. So you cannot buy this model in Pakistan at that price.
It is better to wrap up the assembly of cars in Pakistan.
It is true that current sub quality cars is not even worth buying, and it was revealed that Pakistan only saves US 1 billion dollar annually by assembling the cars compared to fully imported new cars, which is not even worth it. At least, people will get better quality by importing a fully assembled car rather than buying a substandard car, which is not even worth saving US 1 billion dollar, which can be managed by Pakistan rather than driving unsafe cars and putting lives at risk.
