Home grown SUV-maker Mahindra and Mahindra (M&M) made its entry into a new segment of utility vehicles on Sunday, with the launch of a compact SUV – christened KUV 100 – that clearly aims to bring young, first-time buyers into the fold.

The vehicle, which will come in seven variants, marks M&M’s debut into the petrol segment with the first mFalcon engine. It has been priced at ₹4.42 lakh for the base K2 petrol variant and ₹5.22 lakh for the basic diesel variant.

The top end of the vehicle (K8) will come at a tag of ₹5.91 lakh (petrol) and ₹6.76 lakh for diesel (ex-showroom, Pune).

The KUV 100 is the ninth offering from Mahindra this year. In a video message, Chairman Anand Mahindra said launching the Scorpio in 2002 was the first inflection point for the company, and the KUV100 is the second inflection point. Pawan Goenka, Executive Director of M&M, said, “This is something new for Mahindra; we’re charting new territories and our target is new customers. Over the last three-four months, our confidence on having a winner on our hands has increased.”

Major competitors With an objective to lure customers away from popular hatchbacks, the main competitors that the KUV 100 will take on are the Maruti Swift, the Hyundai Grand i10 and the Maruti DZire.

KUV 100 has been in the making for four years, and the company has invested ₹1,200 crore in the project.

It will be built at the Chakan plant on the same line as XUV 500. “The current combined capacity is 9,000 units and in a couple of months, this will be scaled up to 12,000 units per month, with a second line,” Goenka said, adding that the company has received 50,000 “hot enquiries” for the product over the last few weeks.

Engine specifics The petrol engine debuting on the car is a 1,198 CC, 1.2 litre ‘mFalcon’ engine, delivering 82bhp of power. The diesel variant also uses a 1,198 cc engine, which has been developed anew. Amongst the highlights is flexi-seating that can accommodate three passengers in each of the two rows, under-seat storage space, and spider design alloy wheels.

All earlier offerings in the passenger vehicle segment, including the Scorpio, run on diesel engines. At present, the company controls a 40 per cent market share in the SUV segment. Shah said the utility vehicle sales have grown 51 per cent, while passenger vehicle sales have de-grown 7 per cent over the last three years.

This has resulted in the share of utility vehicles in the passenger segment growing to 23 per cent, from 15 per cent three years ago.

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