Mahindra & Mahindra, the leading utility vehicle manufacturer in the country on Thursday introduced its latest utility sport vehicle XUV 500. The vehicle has hit the market with the starting price of Rs. 10.80 lakhs. The bookings will commence from Saturday. After the launch of Xylo, this is the first major utility vehicle by Mahindra.
XUV 500 will be placed between Scorpio and the premium SUV range that includes Toyota Fortuner, Mitubishi Outlander, Chevrolet Captiva, Honda CR-V. Mahindra will provide the vehicle in both 4×2 and 4×4 variants.
The new vehicle will be introduced in South Africa tomorrow. Pawan Goenka, M&M President said, “In the next six months, it will be launched in Australia, South and Central America, Western Europe and SAARC countries.”
In India, the vehicle will be available first in Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai, Mumbai and Pune. It will compete with the Toyota’s Fortuner and General Motors’ Captiva that are priced at around Rs. 19-20 lakh.
Mahindra & Mahindra Chief of Operations of the Automotive Sector, Rajesh Jejurikar told that the price of XUV 500 can be altered after three months, based on the prices of the commodity and other input costs.
Anand Mahindra, M&M Vice-Chairman said: “XUV500 is much more than a car. It will be another cult vehicle, as Scorpio was.” According to him the vehicle reflects the global-aspirations of the firm.
Goenka informed that the company has spend Rs. 650 crore to develop XUV 500 and is the first vehicle from its Chennai research and development centre. The vehicle will be produced at the Chakan plant near Pune.
According to Goenka, XUV 500 will “redefine M&M as the Scorpio did nine years back”.
The company did not disclose the sales targets for the new vehicle but has arrangement for the production of 2000 units per month initially.
The new car promises a lot of fresh technologies from Mahindra. XUV 500 is India’s first indigenously built monocoque SUV as well as the first to provide transverse engine layout. XUV 500 is an international vehicle hence has been designed with global standards of technology, quality, regulations, testing norms and emissions from the beginning itself.
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