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Mahindra & Mahindra has announced that it will restart bookings for its popular new SUV – the XUV500 from June 8. The vehicle will now be available across the country, about seven months after the launch.
Mr Pravin Shah, Chief Executive, Automotive Division, Mahindra & Mahindra, said: “We have been inundated with requests for re-opening of bookings not just from existing cities but also from cities where the XUV500 was not available.”
Bookings deferred
Due to limited production capacity at its Chakan (near Pune) plant and high demand, bookings had been deferred since February 3 this year, after being initiated on January 25.
This was, in fact, the second phase of opening of bookings, after the launch of the XUV500 in October last year in select markets.
In the first phase, Mahindra had received orders for over 8,000 units in just 10 days across the five top cities.
In the second phase, it got over 25,000 bookings across 19 cities from which 7,200 applicants were selected through an automated process.
Production capacity
Production capacity has also been ramped up to 4,000 vehicles per month from the initial plans of making about 2,500 units a month.
The XUV500 is targeted at both SUV and sedan buyers. Its value proposition on a starting price of little over Rs 11 lakh and the array of features offered such as touch-screen navigation and voice-activated controls, have been able to generate a lot of customer interest.
Though nine months of capacity has been sold out across the two rounds of bookings, Mr Pawan Goenka, President of Mahindra’s Automotive and Farm Equipment Sectors, had said that the company has been wary of investing in increasing the production of the SUVs beyond 4,000 a month.
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