Tata Motors Ltd acquired UK-based JaguarLand Rover in June 2008 and has turned around both the brands into profitable margins. It has introduced several models of both the luxury brands in India. It is now considering a plan to assemble a few of the Land Rover models in India to make them competitive in the Indian market. Tata Motors will commence assembly of Land Rover’s Freelander in India by the end of calendar 2010 and launch the locally assembled models by the first half of the next calendar year. It has invested Rs.150 crore for this assembly process and the factory will produce 20 cars per month.
This is the first time that JLR is having an assembly plant outside UK. The company is skeptical if it would use the assembled cars for export market. The sources said that Tata Motors plans to bring in the Freelander 2 through the completely knocked-down (CKD) route to assemble it. Currently, the model is imported and comes in as a fully-built unit, attracting cumulative duties of around 110%. The assembly operations will see the cumulative duties will go down by around 50%, bringing down its cost by up to Rs. 23.5 lakh.
The company will use its facility at Pimpri near Pune, earlier used by Mercedes Benz India Pvt. Ltd, to assemble its cars. The factory has been idle since Mercedes shifted its production base to a new, larger facility at Chakan.
