Mahindra to develop a full-fledged hybrid SUV with manual transmission

Mahindra & Mahindra, India's largest utility vehicle maker is planning to develop a new hybrid technology, which will be fitted to a full fledged SUV. This hybrid system will be mated to a manual transmission, which will help the company to make such vehicle more fuel economical up to 20 per cent. It is also speculated that the homegrown automaker will unveil the new SUV with hybrid system at the next year's Indian Auto Expo.

With manual transmission, the new hybrid system will be an exciting technology to watch. It will be interesting to see how Mahindra manages to create such product, as normally the hybrid vehicles across the globe features an automatic transmission. But the company finds another way to make an affordable product with manual transmission, and thereby a fuel efficient vehicle.

Mahindra has captured a good share in the market by selling close to four lakh micro hybrids vehicles in India. And now the company takes a leap over by focusing largely on full fledged hybrid SUV for the local market. For this particular project, the company has also collaborated with several technology partners who have expertise in the hybrid technology. In India, the only full-scale hybrid model is Toyota Prius which costs Rs 29.3 lakh and Rs 31.6 lakh (ex-showroom, Delhi).

Commenting over the event, Rajan Wadhera, chief executive, technology and product development, said, “ We have signed up with Samsung SDI, which is the global leader in lithium ion batteries for development and supply of these batteries for our hybrid range of vehicles.” He further added saying, “ We are perfecting th hybrid technology to deploy it in various platforms and vehicles across the Mahindra range.” The other technology partners are ZF and tyre manufacturer which are German based auto component manufacturer.

Source: ET