Mahindra to ramp up output of popular XUV 500

Mahindra & Mahindra, India's largest seller of utility vehicles, on Sunday said it will increase the monthly production of its popular sports utility vehicle XUV500 to 5,000 units by around September-October from the current 4,000 units.

The firm that had increased output of the model to 4,000 units a month in May, as it opened bookings for the vehicle across India last week. Earlier the vehicle could only be booked in 19 cities.

"We have been gradually increasing the production of XUV500. It has touched 4,000 units a month now and the next step is to take it to 5,000 units by September-October," Mahindra's automotive division chief Pravin Shah told PTI.

The company re-opened bookings for XUV500 from this month and said the vehicle would be made available across the country, including the 19 cities where it had been launched earlier.

The waiting period between booking and delivery of the vehicle has already extended to months. Shah said nine months' production capacity of the XUV500 was already sold out, indicating that there will still be a long waiting period for delivery.

Mahindra said the upscale in production needs some time as component manufacturers also have to increase their capacity.

Mahindra hopes to better the expected industry growth of 10-12 per cent in the current fiscal (2012-13).

The company will launch a new compact SUV Xylo (Mini) by August-September, before the festive season. The compact sedan Verito CS will also be on sale by end of this year. Mahindra is also working on developing a new petrol automatic version of the XUV500 for the American and Australian markets.