The latest announcement from Tata Motors owned company Jaguar and Land Rover revealed that the company will start assembling its SUV Freelander 2 in India from November this year from its Chikli plant in Maharashtra. The plant was initially leased out to Mercedes Benz as their assembling plant which has been now relocated and Mercedes handed over the plant back to Tata Motors in December last year. The plant is currently undergoing maintenance and repair so that production can commence from November this year.
"JLR has decided to start assembling vehicles with their cheapest offering in India, which is Freelander2. It wants to start production soon. So it has decided to utilise Tata Motors' almost ready facility at Chikhli," a source said.
JLR will import the CKD units from the UK and the same will be assembled at Chikli unit which has a capacity to assemble 3500 units in a single shift. Freelander 2 is currently being retailed at Rs. 33.5 lakh and and above as it is being imported as a completely built unit. The price of the model is expected to come down to between Rs. 25-30 lakh. JLR expects the lowering of price will lead to not only increase in demand but will also help to reduce the long order back logs. It will also enable the company to keep a quality check under control if the cars are assembled locally.
