World will Drive Made-in-India SUVs

Sports utility vehicle segment in India is gearing up and ready to make its mark in developed markets such as Europe, Japan, Latin America and Australia. The Globally renowned auto-majors are looking India as the base for the export market and aims to take advantage of India's cost-competitive manufacturing methods. This will turn the country into an export hub for utility vehicles.

Homegrown auto-major Mahindra & Mahindra and French car-maker Renault has already exporting their flagship XUV500 and the Duster SUVs, respectively, to the European market. Now, Fiat and Ford India are studying the opportunities to export SUVs to Europe, South Africa and Southeast Asia.

According to the Joginder Singh, president and managing director, Ford India, said, that “ The European equation works well with the EcoSport. We already export the Figo to 38 countries from India. We would look at a similar scale for the SUV”. However, Singh did not talked about the number of EcoSport to be exported, the industry sources says that Ford plans to export around 40 per cent of the scheduled annual production of 1,50,000 units to foreign markets. The company will manufacture 380 variants of the SUV at Maraimalai Nagar facility and would be delivered to 40 countries.

Italian car-maker, Fiat also looking to grab this opportunity and aims to export at least two of its SUVs to right-hand drive markets. Earlier, company had revealed their plans of introducing nine new models in the Indian market by 2016. Speaking to Business Standard, Enrico Atanasio, former manging director, Fiat Group Automobiles India, said that,”We are looking at leveraging India as an export hub for right-hand drive models. We have excess capacity available in India and are looking at exporting vehicles from here to the UK, Japan, Australia and South Africa.”

Fiat soon going to introduce the Jeep brand in India with the Grand Cherokee and two compact utility vehicles with the Fiat logo in India. Fiat and Tata Motors together shares a manufacturing unit at Ranjangaon in Maharashtra.

In the last fiscal (2012-13), M&M exported around 2,000 XUV500 to Africa and Europe, and company aims to raise exports to Latin America by the mid of this financial year. Renault India too plans to export around 1,000-3,000 units of the Duster to the UK, where it is sold under the 'Dacia' brand. The French auto-giant is considering exporting the Duster to the other right-hand drive markets such as Malaysia, Indonesia and South Africa.

Source : Business Standard