Jaguar Land Rover compact SUV plans dropped for India

JLR had planned to invest in India for making it a manufacturing hub and also for export purposes. Going by the current plans of JLR, this plan of theirs seems to be scrapped as they now want to focus on the American and European markets from where they generate more sales compared to the Indian market. This is not the first time that a company has decided not to invest in India after initially planning to do so.

Jaguar Land Rover are currently ready to start production from their plant in Slovakia. JLR currently imports all its vehicles from their UK based manufacturing plant. The plan to invest in US doesn’t come in as a shock as the current president Donald Trump had threatened BMW to levy a steep import duty of 35 per cent which would affect the sales of the company by huge margins.

The plan for JLR was to set up a manufacturing plant in Pune somewhere near its parent company Tata’s plant. The plant would have been capable of manufacturing close to 1 lakh units per year including the compact SUV that they had planned to launch. However, plans for the compact SUV have now been dropped and it won’t be launched in India anytime soon.

India is currently becoming a hub for exporting vehicles for automakers as manufacturing cost in the country is cheaper compared to other nations. BMW and Audi are also planning on manufacturing vehicles in the US. If these two companies go ahead with their plan, Jaguar Land Rover will also have to set up its American plant as soon as possible.

JLR sold 54,800 units between April and December 2016 only in the US. This shows the natural tendency to go in favour of the American market compared to the Indian market. JLR currently only assembles vehicles in Pune, from imported kits.