After one million kilometres of testing across diverse road and climatic conditions in India, the MG Hector has finally entered production. The Chinese-owned British-brand confirms that its first product for India will make a global debut on May 15, 2019. Pre-bookings are slated to begin in the early part of June this year, whereas the launch should happen before the calendar switches to July 2019. Here’s the video from the manufacturing facility.
Over the next few weeks, MG Motor India will ship Hector SUV to its retail network of 65 showrooms across 50 cities in India. The company claims that Hector has been extensively localised and features more than 300+ India specific changes aligned with customer preferences and varied road conditions. One of those India-specific features is part of MG Motor’s iSmart technology. It’s called the Voice Assist feature which has been tailor-made to understand the Indian accent and evolve over time. Click here if you want to know more about the iSmart.
The Hector is being built in MG Motor India’s sole plant in Halol, Gujarat. The facility was purchased from Chevrolet when it went out of the Indian market. Up until now, MG Motor India has invested Rs 2,200 crore to ready the plant for its Indian operations. And it took the company just 18 months to bring it up to the required standards. The facility’s current production capacity is 80,000 units per year. However, if the demand rises, that number can be increased.
Mechanical details are still under wraps. That said, the Hector will be available with petrol and diesel engine options. The former will be the same 2.0-litre turbo-diesel mill that currently does duty in two of Hector’s main rivals – the Jeep Compass and the Tata Harrier. The petrol engine is likely to be a 1.5-litre motor which will be available with or without a mild-hybrid system. As far as pricing is concerned, the MG Hector’s line-up is likely to fall between Rs 15-20 lakh. That means it will also lock horns with Mahindra’s XUV500.
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