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Personal utility vehicles come of age in Tamil Nadu
Eicher Polaris Pvt Ltd recently unveiled its personal utility vehicle (PUV) Multix in Chennai. The 3-in-1 PUV is aimed at catering to the business, family and power generation requirements of users in Tier II and Tier III cities. And businessmen from towns such as Coimbatore, in Tamil Nadu are driving the demand for this new category of automobiles.
Chennai
Eicher Polaris (P) Ltd was formed as a 50:50 joint venture between Eicher Motors Ltd and Polaris Industries Inc, that specialises in off-road personal vehicles. The JV was signed in July 2012 with an objective to build a new consumer segment in the Indian automobile industry.
The Multix, which the company says is India’s first PUV, was launched in June 2015 at the manufacturing unit in Kukas, Jaipur.
Pankaj Dubey, CEO, Eicher Polaris Private Ltd says, “During our research, we found that there are as many as 5.8 crore people belonging to the business community who could be our possible target customers, who have a need for utilities provided by a PUV.
So it’s a market that is still in the making. Almost 70 per cent of our customers are first time car buyers and are essentially looking for an upgrade from their two-wheelers.”
The company has nine dealerships in Tamil Nadu in cities such as Coimbatore, Tiruchy, Vellore, Madurai and Erode among others. The investment in the Multix project is quite substantial as Dubey says, “We invested about Rs 350 cr for plant, machinery and setting up.
Our market is spread across India, but as there are more innovators in the South, we got a great response from this region. Tamil Nadu and Kerala have been very encouraging in terms of traction.
We have been testing the products for some time now and getting feedback. We have a presence in 60 locations nationally. We plan on aggressive expansion in the next six months to about 150 locations and touch about 180 locations by the end of the year. We have entered markets like the North-east as well as Punjab and UP too.
At present, the plant capacity is 60,000 units. This year, we plan to grow 100 per cent over last year. For the next few years, we are certain of having a three-digit growth in India.”
Multix is available in two variants, AX+ and MX priced at Rs 3.19 lakh and Rs 3.49 lakh respectively (all prices pan India) and comes in four colours. The vehicle can be configured for seating a family to larger boot space in order to cater to the business needs of the consumer.
The PUV also has a power-take-off X-PORT, which helps the vehicle generate power of up to 3 KW, and it can be used to power professional equipment such as drilling machines, water pumps and more.
On the other end of the spectrum, Polaris has provided the coastal police in TN with around 18 all-terrain vehicles, that are used by the personnel at beaches in Chennai. The provision of 40 more vehicles are in the pipeline, says Dubey.
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