Tata Motors’ owned Land Rover is planing to launch a vehicle below the Range Rover Evoque, our sources have revealed to us. The British automaker is looking to compete against the BMW X1 and Audi Q3 with this compact SUV. The compact SUV project is still in its initial stages of design and the production version will be launched in 2015. Our sources inform us that Ratan Tata himself takes the final call on the styling and has already rejected 17 Concepts of this compact SUV. Land Rover is not only looking at taking market share away from BMW and Audi but is also looking at competing against Toyota, who has been very successful the world over in this segment.
The compact SUV will borrow styling cues from the Range Rover Evoque and will be slightly smaller in size. It will be powered with the same range of engines which power the current range of Land Rover vehicles. The Freelander’s 2.2-litre diesel engine is likely to be the most popular variant on sale, producing 190 PS of power and 420 Nm of torque. This compact SUV will be pivotal for Land Rover to enter developing markets (specially BRIC). Recently Tata Motors has revealed progress on starting a JLR plant in China and this new compact SUV could be manufactured there. The price of this compact SUV could be in the range of Rs. 25-30 lakhs in India, while globally it could start anywhere around £20,000.
Jaguar Land Rover is slowly and steadily making plans to enter other segments. The British automaker is planing a series of vehicles which will bring them big volumes by 2015. There is little doubt about Tata Motors’ strategy of offering numerous variants of its cars. Case in point is how the Manza was spawned from the Indigo, the Vista from the Indica, the Storme from the Safari, the Grande from the Sumo, etc. Ratan Tata believes that offering more models is the only way to survive in the highly competitive car industry.
