Jaguar XE diesel first of 10 JLR products for India this fiscal

The Tata Motors-owned Jaguar Land Rover plans to launch 10 new vehicles this year in India.

Speaking to Autocar Professional in an exclusive interview, Rohit Suri, MD and president, Jaguar Land Rover India said, “We have more than 10 new products that are lined for this new financial year. Of that, I think, the highlight would be the launch of the diesel variant of the Jaguar XE which is slated for an April-end launch. The next one is the Land Rover Discovery, which will be a big launch for us. The ultimate launch will be the new Range Rover Velar, which is expected to come by the end of this financial year (likely in Q3 FY2017-18). So the year ahead looks very good and we believe we will do much better than our performance in CY2016.”

Since its launch at Auto Expo 2016, the XE has remained Jaguar’s only offering in India lacking a diesel engine option. From the latter half of 2016, JLR India has been moving to the new 2.0-litre Ingenium diesel engine. The XE too will be offered with this new-generation four-cylinder diesel engine paired with an eight-speed automatic gearbox as standard. The introduction of the XE diesel will give a fillip to JLR India sales.

According to Suri, “The Jaguar XE has done well for us. The Jaguar XF continues to do well. In fact, in the last two-to-three months, we are witnessing that the Jaguar XE is selling more than the Jaguar XF, which traditionally has been the most popular Jaguar model for us in India. But having said that we see the new Jaguar (XE) is catching steam now.”

Could look to expand assembly operations
The luxury carmaker is also considering assembly of more models in India in line with its strategy to grow operations here. “We have five models being localised in India. We are always looking at how we can bring in more (models) to the local operations because that makes us more competitive in the domestic market. However, it has to make business sense as well. We are bullish on the India market and we are always looking at expanding our local operations here, and that’s why we have five localised models here, this is not happening anywhere else in the world.”

Jaguar Land Rover, at present, has a total of 24 outlets in 22 cities across the country. While it plans to expand the dealer network, it will do so judiciously.  “Of course, we plan to grow this network. We plan to do this in a calibrated manner. Although we hold about 9 percent market share in the luxury car market, it is still not apple-to-apple competition. We do not have smaller cars and that why we have to carefully plan our network. Do we cover our relevant market? Yes, we do about 90-95 percent. However, within the given range of cars too, we will continue to expand our footprint in a planned manner.”

Also read: Exclusive interview with Rohit Suri, MD & president, JLR India 

All you should know about the Range Rover Velar