Land Rover Freelanders will be assembled in India from 2011, Autocar India has learned.
Autocar’s sister publication understands that the Freelander will be assembled as a Complete Knocked Down (CKD) model in Tata Motor’s Pune plant.

The move has been promoted by increasing popularity for Jaguar Land Rover models and SUVs in India, plus local assembly should help bring the Freelander’s list price down by around a third, which is just as well as the SUV is seen as expensive in India.
In Mumbai, where it is sold at an even greater premium, the list price could fall by as much as 40 per cent.

In its first year of sales in India last year, Land Rover sold 225 units; local assembly will allow Land Rover to be much more competitive in the booming SUV segment.
Audi’s SUV models in particular are gaining in popularity, and local assembly of the Audi Q5 recently started in India to cash in on its popularity.
JLR is also looking at locally assembling models in China for the Far East market.