JLR To Open Assembly Plant By May

Tata Motors had revealed its plans to locally assemble the FreeLander 2 at its Chikhli plant last year. The company has now decided to commence assembly operations in May, 2011 which will help reduce the price of the SUV by close to Rs. 8 lakhs. This will make the Freelander 2 a good alternative to the BMW X1 and the Toyota Fortuner. The Fortuner’s price is said to increase to upto Rs. 30 lakhs, which gives Land Rover immense alternative in the growing SUV market in the country. The Assembly in India would be the 5th of Land Rover in the world, with the company having assembly facilities in Pakistan, Malaysia, Turkey and Kenya.

“We are still in talks with executives from Tata Motors and Jaguar Land Rover on an exact date” for opening the plant. But, end of May would seem realistic enough. We are open to assembling other models from both brands in future,” a Land Rover spokesperson said. “We may bring in more engineers from the U.K. as well as use more people from the Indian company (Tata Motors) as and when required,” he added.