The company, which manufacturers he Mitsubishi range of automobiles, Hindustan Motor Finance Corp Ltd (HMFCL), has announced that it is ready to launch the Mitsubishi Attrage sedan in the country. The company, which has been struggling to keep a pace in the Indian market, will also look forward to launch the Mitsubishi Delica MPV that would be able to compete with the likes of Toyota Innova.
The company has systematically withdrawn a number of models from the market like Outlander, Cedia as well as the Lancer, on grounds of poor demand; the Japanese brand has only Pajero Sport as the lone model in the market. The Chennai manufacturing facility of HMFCL is heavily underutilised due to this factor. Apart from the Pajero Sport, the plant also takes care for the assembly of Isuzu MU-7 SUV as well as D-Max pickup truck temporarily. However, once the Isuzu’s Sri City factory is ready, the production will be stopped. HMFCL will be on the lookout for new partners for balancing out the losses incurred due to almost no production.
Mitsubishi Motors had announced last year that it is planning to launch as many as five new products in India in between the 2014 to 2016 period. The announcement included the launch of an automatic 4x2 as well as facelift versions of the Pajero Sport, both of which were launched in the last year. Delica MPV and Mitsubishi Attrage were the other products in the pipeline. However, the Mirage hatchback is not being considered as of now, so says Uttam Bose, the MD of HMFCL. The Attrage compact sedan is based on the platform of the Mirage and will rival the lower variants of Honda City, Nissan Sunny, Chevrolet Sail as well as Toyota Etios, Hyundai Verna, Fiat Linea, Skoda Rapid as well as Volkswagen Vento. The Mitsubishi sedan will be provided only with a diesel engine and a manual transmission. It is expected that the car will make an entry into the market only in the financial year 2016-17.
The Delica has a passenger capacity of eight, thus quite capacious. It is currently produced in Philippines, Indonesia and Thailand. The MPV will surely have to be localised in order to price it competitively in the Indian market. The model will have a 15 to 20 per cent local content initially, which will move up to 40 per cent at a later stage. It is expected that the car will make an entry in India within a span of 3 to 4 years.
