re: Field trials of the 4-door Mahindra Thar begin! Quote:
Originally Posted by Cliff9091 The Scorpio-N 4x4 would seem lost once the 5 Door Thar goes on sale next year, not sure how M&M goes ahead with product placement.
When the Scorpio-N 4x4 went on sale I'm sure XUV700 AWD takers would have shifted their bookings to the Scorpio, same applies to the Scorpio when the Thar is launched.
Mahindra already has 3 hot products in the 20 lakhs OTR space, one more just seems a little too cluttered for me. |
Great question!
As they say in popular Marketing lingo, when product placement is too close to each other, cannibalization will occur but I see that as a good thing because a brand would rather have that cannibalization occur within their own portfolio rather than losing that potential sale to a rival manufacturer.
The way I look at it, Mahindra is being fairly clever and kudos to them: XUV7OO: For folks who want the ultimate cossetted driving/chauffeur-driven experience every day and a polished product, a couch on the wheels that can take them to Spiti/Leh and indulge in some rough stuff (I would refrain from calling it the oft-abused term “Off Roading”) if need be. Scorpio-N: For folks who want to make a statement that bigger is better, need to ply their large 7-seater SUV on urban/rural roads/occasional farmhouse trip and do not mind the rough & tumble that comes along with a body on frame platform. My guess is that a large chunk of Scorpio-N sales come from Tier 2/3 cities rather than metros. A large chunk of these buyers have owned the older generation Scorpio and want to upgrade to the latest iteration. Still, another section were eyeing a pre-owned Fortuner and are impressed with the looks/capabilities of this burly SUV. Thar 5 door: For the so-called hardcore “Off-Roader” (I have my own reservations in using this term as less than 1% of the end users would take it off the pavement; it’s quite altogether a different thing that some of the urban roads in tier 2/3 cities present enough “Off Roading” experience right there in the cities with large sized potholes etc.). This in most cases is the only family car so 5 seats and easy ingress/egress is important. My guess is that the 5-door Thar will have a better ride quality than the 3-door one (I hope folks at Mahindra have learnt important lessons from the frequent user complaint of a jarring ride of the 3-door version). A large number of the prospective buyers of 5-door Thar dream of buying a Wrangler but cannot afford one (no offence to anyone, even I cannot afford a Wrangler in India given its stratospheric pricing) and therefore the next best option would suffice. A sizable chunk of sales could potentially come from the existing 3-door Thar owners and so you could see a large number of the 3-door variants up for grabs in the pre-owned market once the 5-door Thar goes on sale. A subset of potential 5-door Thar owners wants to be seen in a vehicle that portrays their outdoorsy lifestyle (whether that is a reality or not is immaterial; believe it or not this is one of the drivers for Wrangler sales in North America. I have driven almost all the Wrangler variants and It is quite a challenge to convince your family for one as it is not what a stereotypical SUV is; more than 98% of Wranglers never leave pavements, and most of these are more of a mall crawler, a very large majority of Wrangler owners buy into the "Jeep" heritage and then there is the "Jeep" community that almost has a cult status) so there are a large number of factors at play here. There is a possibility that the 5-door Thar could steal some sales away from the Scorpio-N but we’ll see. There will also be a section of buyers who will come from other brands given its potential appeal as an all-in-one product that is both capable and family-friendly.
I have never owned a Mahindra vehicle personally although I learnt to drive on a petrol Mahindra CJ-3B (My dad's official vehicle) back in the late 80s so I have a soft corner for the brand. Back in 1998, I came very close to buying an MM540 but could not muster enough financial resources and so that did not happen. I sincerely hope Mahindra is able to give future Thar 5-door buyers a great product and thereby great ownership experiences something that eludes a number of existing Mahindra vehicle owners.
In all fairness Mahindra has come a long way as a vehicle manufacturer since the grand old days of the spartan MM540 however I feel that their vehicles are still not polished enough to inspire confidence in a small subset of buyers on account of numerous reports of some issue or the other and they end up buying a Korean or a Japanese product. I feel Mahindra is almost there and hopefully, the 5-door Thar will have a sorted ride/suspension/steering/electronics and will be an example of Mahindra’s engineering prowess that has come into its own.
Last edited by Rudra Sen : 30th May 2023 at 10:08.
Reason: typo edited
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