Mahindra's luxury SUV comes out of India to New Zealand 
MAHINDRA XUV500 W8
Price range: $36,990 (FWD) to $39,990 (AWD).
Powertrain: 2.2-litre turbo-diesel producing 103kW/330Nm, 6-speed automatic with front or all-wheel drive.
On sale: Now.
You could look at Indian brand Mahindra in two ways.
From
a Kiwi perspective, it's a relative newcomer, niche purveyor of utes
and farm vehicles and a concern that could do with some spelling
tutelage (one of its models is called the Pik Up).
in the bigger picture, Mahindra Automotive makes half a million cars per
year (so about the same as another Indian carmaker, Jaguar Land Rover)
and holds a 40 percent market share at home. Its parent company,
Mahindra & Mahindra, is a US$17 billion concern with no debt and 112
different divisions covering 20 different industries in 100 countries.
Mahindra has owned a controlling interest in Korean brand SsangYong
since 2011. Other recent motoring-related purchases include Peugeot
Scooters and Italian design house Pininfarina. Mahindra is also the
world's largest manufacturer of tractors by volume (300,000 annually)
and happens to own a few other minor brands, such as Mitsubishi
Tractors.
Mahindra has a controlling interest in electric-car
maker Reva (the e20 city car is on sale in India and London) and it's
one of 10 core partners in the Formula E series.
So Mahindra is a
massive concern that's looking to establish itself more firmly in export
markets, particularly in the automotive sphere. Of those 500,000 cars
manufactured last year, 474,000 were sold in India. There's room to
expand.
It's
baby steps towards that goal, which is why Mahindra is testing the
waters in markets like Australia and New Zealand. Mahindra has some
serious commercial muscle behind it: the local distribution company is
owned by Nichibo, NZ's largest used-vehicle importer: it brings in
approximately 45,000 cars per year and gives Mahindra access to over 20
retail locations, from Northland to Southland.
Nonetheless, Mahindra has been operating under the radar here,
selling vehicles like the Genio ute, Pik Up and Thar to commercial and
rural customers. Off-roaders are in the DNA: Mahindra started building a
version of the American Willys Jeep in 1947, and it continues as a cult
vehicle in (mildly) modernised form as the Thar. Unlike Genio and Pik
Up, it's not legally road-registrable - but it
is sold here as a farm vehicle.
Anyway,
those are light-commercial curiosities compared with Mahindra's
aspirations towards the mainstream SUV market. It's had the XUV500, a
seven-seat family crossover, on the market since 2014, but only in
diesel-manual form. The appeal was limited to say the least.
DAVID LINKLATER/FAIRFAX NZ
Pravin Shah, global head of Mahindra Automotive, visited NZ for the XUV launch.
The refreshed model is now available with an automatic transmission,
and that's been the catalyst for the company to make a lot more noise
about its model range.
In fact, special guest for the select media
launch of the XUV500 was Pravin Shah, president and chief executive of
Mahindra Automotive and member of the Group Executive Board. That's
quite a coup for a company that sold 200 road vehicles last year, in one
of the smallest car markets in the world.
But we
are part of a bigger picture for Mahindra. "New Zealand is part of a globalisation strategy," says Shah. "We are here to stay."
That
strategy started back in 2011 with the aquisition of SsangYong, and has
continued on the same path with Pininfarina: "SsangYong has really
helped with our global footprint and it fits with our SUV DNA.
"As
for Pininfarina, the purchase was not based on surplus cash but global
strategy. This was a critical aquisition, because there will be a future
when automotive companies may not actually produce the cars you buy. It
may be technology or IT companies. Pininfarina and Mahindra Tech [the
group's IT division, which also has a presence in NZ] together make a
lot of sense."
That's a lot of talk about about a bold new future.
In the here and now, the XUV500 is more of an old-school SUV. It's a
seven-seat wagon that comes at a bargain price (from $36,990) for a
fully loaded package: standard equipment for the W8 model includes
leather upholstery, seven-inch colour touch screen with pinch-and-zoom
satellite navigation, power driver's seat, reversing camera with dynamic
guidelines, foldable second and third-row seats, LED interior lights,
and wireless tyre-pressure monitoring on all wheels, including
(usefully) the spare.
Mahindra NZ is realistic about this vehicle.
It's pitched as a step-up from a used car, or a weekend tow-wagon (it
can haul 2.5 tonnes). Projected volume is just 200 per year, or about
the same number of Sportages that Kia sold last month. Like we said,
baby steps. To put a positive spin on it, the XUV500 will double
Mahindra's Kiwi car-sales volume.
It's definitely a second-tier
vehicle compared with the latest Japanese and Korean SUVs, but then it's
priced accordingly. The powertrain is very good: a 2.2-litre turbo
diesel by Austrian company AVL, matched to a Japanese Aisin six-speed
automatic (the same unit that's used in the SsangYong Tivoli). It's no
ball of fire - especially when the XUV weighs two-and-a-half tonnes -
but the engine is linear and the gearbox smooth.
The XUV rides on a
car-like monocoque chassis, but the handling of the AWD model we
sampled at launch was more akin to a heavy-duty off-road vehicle. The
steering loads up quickly and the suspension settles uncomfortably over
bumpy open-road corners. This, and the car's considerable weight, are a
mystery given the crossover-type construction.
So the XUV500 is a
bit of a mixed bag. It looks the part. Build quality is excellent but
the cabin plastics and panel gaps aren't. The powertrain is slick but
the chassis wobbles.
It's also only achieved four stars in Ancap testing. Shah describes crash-test results as a "state of mind".
"We have produced 160,000 of these vehicles and I am not aware of a single fatality," he says.
It's
likely that the XUV will mark a turning point for Mahindra, with future
models being developed on shared platforms with subsidiary SsangYong.
"I cannot give you a timeline for this," says Shah, "but it is
happening."
By the way, it's the "XUV five-double-0", not "XUV
five-hundred". Model names ending in "double-O" are very much a Mahindra
thing, apparently.
(4.5/5)
