Land Rover cars soon to sport made-in-India tag

Jaguar Land Rover, two fully owned subsidiary of India's leading car maker Tata Motors, will soon sport the made-in-India tag as the Indian owner of the company has decided to assemble some of trade-mark JLR vehicles in the Indian market. As per the recent news reports, Tata Motors is mulling over the option of assembling the popular Freelander 2 in the Indian market. The Freelander 2 carries a price tag of Rs 33.5 lakh (ex-showroom Delhi), and is the lowest-priced model in the Land Rover's stable in India. The Freelander 2 model will possibly be brought in India as a completely knocked-down (CKD) units, so that its production cost can be minimized.

At present, the Freelander 2 model is imported as a completely built unit (CBU) in the Indian market and attracts a high import duty of 110%. By bringing its assembly operations in the Indian market, the company will manage to cut down the total duties by as much as 50%. Besides this, some other models of Land Rover may be assembled in India including, Discovery 4 and Range Rover, though these plans may not be implemented in the near future.

Since the starting of year 2010, the luxury-car segment has been witnessing a high-demand momentum which has forced the leading car makers of this segment to expand their production capacities in the Indian market. Leading car makers of this segment like Mercedes Benz, BMW and Audi are working hard on their expansion plans to catch-up with this rising demand.