In a first move to strengthen the arms of JLR in India, Tata Motors will assemble Land Rover’s luxury sports utility vehicle ( SUV )) Freelander in India, hoping to cash in on the lower tax benefits Mercedes facility at Tata motors was recently vacated by the former in lieu of its new plant, Tata will use that facility to assemble freelander. Tata plans to locally assemble 2000 units of freelander in India. The local assembly will start later this year, where we will produce all available variant of the Freelander,” said Tata Motors MD and CEO Carl Peter Foster.
The company will assemble Completely Knocked Down (CKD) units imported from Jaguar and Land Rover (JLR) in the UK and assemble them at their Chikhli plant near Pune.
Tata Motors has sold more than 200 units of its Land Rover brand in India and plans to focus on local assembling to gain market share. Freelander 2 will be the first locally assembled model to hit the market.
The recent Budget has made changes in the definition of completely-knocked down (CKD) kits, upsetting the plans of foreign car-makers.
If everything goes as per plan, we expect a price tag of 25 lakhs on the ‘Sort of Made-in-India’ Freelander 2. The Freelander 2 will compete with BMW X1 and Toyota Fortuner.
More pictures of Land Rover Freelander2 –
