Tata Motors developing Land Rover Discovery Sport-based SUV

Autocar India, Autocar Professional’s sister magazine, has revealed that the first product to come out of the collaboration between Tata Motors and Land Rover will be an SUV codenamed Q501.

The Q501 will be built on the same platform as the new Land Rover Discovery Sport (L550) and will compete with SUVs like Mahindra’s XUV500 at the lower end and the Toyota Fortuner at the top end.

However, while Tata’s SUV will share structural bits such as the floorpan with the Land Rover, the two products will be completely different in terms of look and feel; the engine too will not be shared. For the Q501, Tata Motors is evaluating Fiat’s 2.0 Multijet II engine, which is expected to develop between 150 and 175bhp, and lower-powered versions of the same could be used as well.

While the basic Discovery Sport platform will deliver high levels of safety, the rest of the new Tata will be unique, including the styling and entire interior design. The suspension set-up is likely to be newly engineered as a more basic but still highly robust spring and damper system.

One problem the company may face is that the engine is likely to be expensive as it will initially be imported, and it’s only when Fiat localises this engine at its Ranjangoan plant (a joint venture with Tata Motors) for future Jeep products that the cost will reduce.

Stiff cost targets have been set for the Q501, which seem unachievable at the moment, but the company is hoping that this SUV will find a sweet spot and sell in big enough numbers to give it much-needed economies of scale and localisation to drive down costs.

There’s no indication of the launch date, but the new SUV is unlikely to arrive before late 2017.

Story source: www.autocarindia.com