Mahindra & Mahindra's
XUV500 is back on the booking list in the auto market with the company
re-opening bookings for its hugely popular sport utility vehicle (SUV) from June 8. The
vehicle is priced between Rs 11 lakh and Rs 15 lakh.
The company has announced that it has already received an overwhelming 7,200 bookings for its XUV500 within just 2 days of opening the bookings.
Since its launch last September, this was the third time bookings for Mahindra XUV500 opened. The car commands a premium of over Rs 2 lakh in the black market considering the craze all over India.
The XUV500 is now available at more than 100 dealerships across India, including those cities where it had been launched earlier.
Speaking on the response to the XUV500, Pravin Shah, Chief Executive, Automotive Division, Mahindra & Mahindra said: "We would like to take this opportunity to offer our heartfelt thanks to our customers for the confidence they have shown in us. This overwhelming response in today's challenging market environment is a testimony to the popularity of the XUV500."
Considering the rising demand and with more players like Maruti and Ford entering the SUV segment, M&M has decided to ramp up the production capacity of XUV500 to 4,000 vehicles per month at its Chakan plant near Pune.
In the first phase, the SUV was rolled out in six cities but the firm had to stop accepting bookings within few days after being swamped with over 8,000 applications.
In the
second phase of bookings, in January, the XUV500 was made available in 19 cities and received 25,000 applications. Of these requests, the names of 7,200 winning applicants were selected through an automated process XUV500 Draw.
"It has been an incredible journey so far for the XUV500 and we are pleased to take the product national. We have been inundated with requests for reopening bookings not just from cities where the XUV500 was available but also from cities where the SUV was unavailable," Pravin Shah, chief executive, automotive division, M&M, has said while announcing the opening of bookings.
"Now that we have ramped up our production capacity significantly, we are confident that we will be able to take care of the growing all-India demand for the XUV500," Shah added.
The SUV comes with a cheetah-inspired body, refinement, enhanced technology, safety features and luxurious interiors.
Mahindra XUV500 is already available in South Africa and the auto major plans to export XUV500 to western Europe, south east Asia, Australia and South America.
With inputs from Mail Today Bureau
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