Toyota Innova has been emerged as undisputed leader in Indian people mover segment. The success of Toyota Innova has attracted other car manufacturers interest towards this segment. In the year 2009 Mahindra launched Xylo and managed to grab a decent pie of MPV market. Nissan is all set to launch their people mover NV200 in India. Country’s small car king Maruti Suzuki will unveil their MPV Ertiga in coming months. The list is extending further to GM-SAIC’s Sunshine, Force Motors new MPV and now country’s leader commercial vehicle manufacturer Ashok Leyland has announced their plans to do an Innova (to be more precise Xylo) like vehicle.
“The demand for the Innova has defined the overall demand for such vehicles in India. The way people travel has completely changed in India in the past few years. There used to be a Tata Sumo, which got replaced by Toyota’s top-selling Qualis, which eventually made way for the Innova. Today, there is a waiting period for the Innova, which sells close to 5,000 units every month,” said V Sumantran, executive vice chairman, Hinduja Automotive.
Ashok Leyland will be developing an 7 or 8 seater vehicle based on Nissan’s NV200 van. Nissan and Ashok Leyland is already manufacturing a small LCV Dost from latter’s Chennai plant.
“We will have a common platform but they would be expressed differently, with different styling, different content and different positioning. We will target more towards commercial users, while Nissan will target more of personal users. If we take the Innova, for example, a lot of people use it for family transport and some others as a tourist car and as taxis,” added Sumantran.
Ashok Leyland’s new MPV will be hitting the market in two years time. So we will be able to see this new avatar of Nissan MPV during 2014 New Delhi Auto Expo. Stay with us for updates.
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Source:- BS Motoring
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