Jaguar Land Rover India Will Determine its Manufacturing Strategy After Market Feasibility Study

Jaguar Land Rover has started its feasibility study for manufacturing the vehicles in India after the company finalized its joint venture with Chinese auto major Chery Automobile. The Tata Motors owned Jaguar Land Rover is planning to set a manufacturing plant, which comprises of in house engine production in Pune (Maharashtra) or Sanand (Gujarat) for manufacturing its next generation Defender. The site will be entirely new plant and it will be separate from the plant at Chikhale near Pune, where in Freelander SUV is being assembled currently.

The Chikhale plant near Pune is the same site, where Mercedes Benz had its Indian production. The results of the feasibility study of Jaguar Land Rover India will be reported in the second quarter of the year 2012. The people related to the developments of the company reported that the study is at a very tender stage and if the results of the study are positive, the plant will be incorporated in the mid year of 2015. The plant will have a capacity of manufacturing 30,000 to 40,000 units per year. JLR will be using this new manufacturing plant as an export center from where almost 60-80 per cent of the total output will be shipped in to the overseas market.

The team which has been formed for the project L660 for the next generation Defender has visited to India a lot many times and the team is quite interested in this project. This next generation Defender will be powered by I4D inline turbocharged 4 cylinders 2-litre diesel engine codenamed as AJ200 that will be delivering 170-250 hp of power to the SUV. The engine may be manufactured at the proposed engine plant in India. VG Ramakrishnan who is the senior director at automotive practice of Frost & Sullivan said that this was obvious as the parent company of JLR has a strong base in India.