Land Rover Defender to be assembled locally in India

Under the new FTA, import tariffs on CBUs will drop from 110% to just 10%.

JLR India is planning to assemble the Defender SUV in India. The move to CKD assembly is expected to reduce its price significantly, thus making it more competitive in the Indian luxury SUV space.

Richard Molyneux, Chief Financial Officer at JLR, said, “Most of our models are locally assembled in India at the Pune plant. For the Defender, plans are in process to assemble the cars locally. We want to tap demand from ultra-high-net-worth individuals in the upcoming years and grow presence in the Indian market.”

The Defender could see a price drop of over Rs 20 lakh

The Defender is priced in the range of Rs 1.05 crore to Rs 2.79 crore. Reports suggest that the CKD version is likely to cost over Rs 20 lakh less, making it an ideal alternative to other sub-Rs 1 crore premium SUVs.

JLR India also stands to benefit from the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) that was recently announced between the UK and India. Under this agreement, import tariffs on CBUs will drop from 110% to just 10%.

Currently, the Defender is manufactured at JLR’s Nitra facility in Slovakia. India charges an import duty of 16.5% on CKD units under the old policy (pre-FTA).

Source: Live Mint