At a time when Indian auto industry is battling double digit decline in sales, at a time when Maruti is posting 24% decline in sales, while Tata is posting 38% decline; Mahindra is managing to stay afloat with stable sales performance. This is largely thanks to their new generation of cars like XUV300 and Marazzo.
In the last fiscal, Mahindra launched both these cars, which have added about 8k units to the company’s monthly total sales. If these were not launched, Mahindra too would have been reporting double digit decline in sales. In order to continue to the momentum going forward, Mahindra plans to invest Rs 18,000 crores over the next three years to launch new cars, in R&D, widen dealer network, etc.
Mahindra believes that the Indian auto industry will bounce back from this slump in sales soon, and will come back with a boom. Analysts are confident that India is on its way to become one of the top automotive consumer in the world. In order to be ready for when the time comes, Mahindra is working to launch new cars with new engines.
Mahindra plans to launch atleast three new cars in 2020. These will be all new generation versions of Thar, Scorpio and XUV500. All will be powered by the same 2 liter diesel engine, but will have different power and torque output. Thar is expected to have the least output variant with about 120-130 hp. Scorpio will have about 150-160hp tune, while XUV500 will have the 180 hp tune. This new engine is BS6 compliant, and will come with manual as well automatic gearbox.
Speaking about the cars, all three cars will be built on a completely new platform, feature a new design, with inputs from Pininfarina design house. Interiors too will be completely revamped as they will offer more space as compared to the current Thar, Scorpio and XUV500. All three cars will be lighter than what they are today, will deliver better safety, more fuel efficiency, comfort and technology.
Apart from launching new generation cars, Mahindra is also working on updating their existing cars like Bolero, TUV300 and XUV300 to meet BS6 norms. These emission norms will come into effect from 1st April 2020. The above images, credit to Venkatesh Kumar, show the Bolero BS6, XUV300 BS6, 2020 Thar, TUV300 BS6 and 2020 Scorpio on test. 2020 XUV500 has not been spied yet.
