M&M to produce up to 18,000 units of NuvoSport a year

The compact SUV is the segment which is witnessing major gains in the Indian automobile market. No wonder then that UV market leader Mahindra & Mahindra's three consecutive launches since September 2015 are of compact SUVs (less than 4 metres in length).

The latest one is the NuvoSport, a replacement to Mahindra’s first compact SUV, the Quanto which was first launched in September 2012. Though the NuvoSport is based on a new chassis, it is seen as a majorly refreshed version of the Quanto. M&M invested Rs 115 crore to develop the NuvoSport in "less than two years".

Positioned as a "primarily urban" vehicle for a young crowd, the NuvoSport reflects M&M’s efforts to create new space in the SUV market. The new model with six variants, which is priced between Rs 7.35 lakh to Rs 9.76 lakh (ex-showroom, Thane), sits above the Mahindra TUV300 and the Scorpio in the Mahindra stable. The company has built capacity to produce 18,000 NuvoSports a year in its Nashik plant. That translates to 1,500 units a month. This figure is more than twice the Quanto's average monthly sales till February 2016.

Mahindra's NuvoSport is aimed to take on Ford's EcoSport in the marketplace. According to company officials, the model's base variant costs around Rs 10,000 lesser than the EcoSport 1.5-litre diesel's base variant and the difference is of Rs 25,000 between the top variants of the competing models. The EcoSport (with 3 engine options) sold around 3,250 units a month on an average during the April 2015-February 2016 period.

M&M failed to get the numbers with the Quanto, which sold only 26,394 units between September 2012 and February 2016. It is confident that the NuvoSport will be a different story altogether. It could be, if the vehicle clicks with customers to ride the compact SUV wave. The share of compact SUVs in the UV market has reached 44 percent at the end of FY 2016. That is double than what it was just four years ago. Overall, in the passenger vehicle space, the share of UVs has grown from 15 percent in FY 2012 to 22 percent now.

As for the other compact SUVs from Mahindra, the TUV300 has sold 20,000 units since its launch in September 2016. The KUV100, launched in mid-January 2016, got off to a decent start with 35,000 bookings. Will the NuvoSport give M&M the added boost to race successfully against the Ford EcoSport and Maruti Suzuki's Vitara Brezza? A challenging job. Keep reading this space as we track the developments and bring you the reports.