Your wait for XUV 500 just got shorter

Are you still waiting for that XUV 500? Well here’s some good news. Mahindra and Mahindra is planning to reopen the bookings of its much-in-demand sports utility vehicle from 8 June, said an Economic Times report today .

The automotive company received an overwhelming response for the SUV in October 2011 in the five cities it launched with over 8,000 bookings, which necessitated the company to close the bookings.

So successful has the SUV’s launch been that it has already sold out nine months of production capacity in two round of bookings. The company received 5,000 orders in the first week of launch, which prompted a production ramp-up and delayed launches in other regions.

[caption id=“attachment_323235” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“In the second phase of bookings, the XUV500 was made available in 19 cities across India”] [/caption]

In the second phase of bookings, the XUV500 was made available in 19 cities across India and received an overwhelming 25,000+ booking applications from customers,the ET report said. M&M used a ’lucky draw’ system to allot the cars as the bookings exceeded 7,200 in number.

Powered by a 2.2-litre diesel engine, the XUV500 has a six-speed transmission and is also available in a four-wheel drive variant.

XUV 500, which was launched in October 2012 for an introductory price between Rs 10.8 lakh and Rs 11.95 lakh (ex-showroom Delhi) is the first Mahindra vehicle to be launched globally. It is being manufactured in Chakan, an auto hub located about 100 miles east of Mumbai, where Mahindra has invested close to $700 million in a state-of-the-art plant.

In February, M&M president (automotive and farm equipment sectors) Pawan Goenka had said the company was going slow on the international launch of the vehicle to meet domestic demand.

“We were supposed to enter markets like Australia and are ready to launch XUV500 in many markets. But we have decided to slow down to meet domestic demand,” Goenka had said.

He also said the company will increase the output of XUV500 to 4,000 units by May from the earlier 3,000 units. Without specifying a timeline, he added that the output would ultimately be increased to about 5,000 units a month.