Mumbai: After officially launching the Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) brand in the country two months back, the new owner of the British iconic brands, Tata Motors, on Tuesday launched the Freelander 2, a sports utility vehicle from the Land Rover stable in India. It will start selling the Land Rover 2010 range models from this November. The company will be getting the 2010 Ranger Rover and Range Rover Sports in November followed by Discovery 4 by the end of December. It has stopped the sale of Discovery 3 and managed to sell only two of them.
Priced between Rs 33.8 lakh to Rs 45 lakh (ex-showroom Mumbai), the 2.2 litre diesel Freelander 2 comes in three variants—S, SE and HSE. Talking at the occasion, Rajiv Dube, president, passenger cars unit, Tata Motors, said, “There are no competing models in the market in terms of breadth and capacity. Our Freelander 2 fulfills all these requirements of a customer. It widens our JLR offering in India.” He added that the company expects to attain volumes of 2,000 units of Freelander 2 per annum in the years to come. Till now, the company has managed to sell 20 units of JLR.
When asked about the rationale behind launching of old generation models in the country when the next generation is ready, Rohit Suri, head, premier car division, Tata Motors, said, “At that time we didn’t have the new Discovery 4 available and had to get Discovery 3. But from now on all the 2010 models will be made available to the customers.” He added at present the company has just Freelander from the LR stable since new generation Range Rover and Range Rover Sports are on their way. There will be a price difference of Rs 2-2.5 lakh between the Discovery 3 and Discovery 4.
Abdul Majeed, leader, automotive practice, PwC, said, “The SUV market since the last few years is growing at 18-20%. Freelander 2 will give a stiff competition to brands like BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Audi.” The company will be opening six more dealerships in 2010 across cities including Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad and Ludhiana. Currently, it has only one dealership in Mumbai.
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