Land Rover will begin production of the Freelander in India this month. The production line will be located in the very same section of Tata Motors’ Pune plant that was earlier used by Mercedes.
The production of the Freelander will be followed by another Land Rover product in the near future, probably the Discovery 4 or the new Evoque, and sources from inside the company have revealed that the third product likely to be assembled here will be the Jaguar XF.
Production is expected to commence on May 27 and, Tata, it appears, is putting its shoulder to the wheel to make India Jaguar Land Rover’s second home market. And the signs are good. An estimated 75 Jaguars were sold last month in India and once the number of dealerships is increased to the proposed 20, there should be an increase in the number of cars sold.
Recently-appointed CEO Ralf Speth has said the next two or three years will be very critical to the health of the company, but that things are currently looking up.
Tata Motors has been very proactive as far as investments in the company are concerned and he revealed that every cent earned (as high as 1.5 billion pounds) will be ploughed back into product development. There is also talk of Tata sharing the Freelander platform for its own SUVs in the future. This, of course, will mean it won’t need to make its own monocoque-based vehicle like Mahindra has.
© Haymarket SAC Publishing (India) Pvt Ltd, 2011. All rights reserved.
Viraaj Bhatnagar
Dipan Sur
Dhruv Dhaka
