JLR is planning to get extremely aggressive in India and wants dethrone the Germans. The luxury market in India has been consistently showing high growth potential but most of this growth is ruled by Mercedes, BMW and Audi.
Because the company is owned by Tatas, the management believes that it has a responsibility to overtake traditional rivals like BMW and Audi in India. JLR now views India as a second ‘home market’ after the UK where it is regarded as the top luxury brand.
The company is testing the feasibility producing the Freelander 2 at the Tata plant in Pune via the CKD route. It also plans to make India a hub for all its production requirements for the Asia region
The company plans to introduce all its range of products including the new Range Rover Evoque and the soon to be launched facelifted XF. As many as 40 new products will be introduced over the next five years, the company stated recently.
Tata could soon begin assembling Land Rover’s compact SUV, the Freelander in India. The compact crossover SUV, Freelander could be assembled in India at Tata’s now idle Pimpri facility which was assembling Mercedes Benz cars in the past. The facility has been idle since Mercedes Benz shifted to its own plant at Chankan, Pune.
A Tata Motors Official was quoted saying-
Trial production will begin by December. At this point, it’s not clear whether JLR will use the factory to address markets outside India.
Tata would begin trial production by the end of the year and would be rolling out Land Rover Freelanders from this factory by mid-2011. Tata has reportedly earmarked 150 crore Rupees to begin the Frelander’s assembly. The company is looking to assemble about 20 Land Rover Freelanders a month.
The Land Rover Freelander which come as a CBU attracting 110% excise duty, is now priced at Rs. 34.7 lakhs (on-road Mumbai) for its base variant is a direct rival to the BMW X3 and Audi Q5. Land Rover sold around 242 cars between 2009-10.
If Tata can assemble the CKDs in India, the cost of the base variant can be brought down to Rs. 23.5 lakhs (CKDs attaract only 40% excise duty), the Freelander would be in the soon-to-be launched X1 territory and with diesel engines, the premium compact SUV could do some very brisk sales. The possibility of a Land Rover Freelander at the price of a Honda CR-V would be very very exciting.
Speculation has it that, Tata Motors is finalising its retail plans for its British marques- Jaguar and Land Rover to set base here in India. Tata officials said that plans are underway to try and sell the cars through company-owned showrooms.
JLR is planning to get extremely aggressive in India and wants dethrone the Germans. The luxury market in India has been consistently showing high growth potential but most of this growth is ruled by Mercedes, BMW and Audi.
