Saar: You don’t need to worry about the tedious stuff like road tax, insurance, breakdown assistance, accidental repairs and maintenance costs.

Homegrown automaker Mahindra has introduced leasing of cars for retail buyers in India and can you guess why? Simple – to get more people driving Mahindra cars. The idea to introduce Mahindra products to potential customers, who currently don’t own a car for their commutes. And you have to say, some may continue with the leasing service while some might buy a Mahindra car. Pretty neat!

So, what are the leasing costs like? Well, if you are okay leasing the Mahindra KUV100NXT, you can do that at a monthly cost of Rs 13,499. Similarly, if you want something like a Mahindra XUV500 for your travels, that will cost you Rs 32,999 on a monthly basis. Mahindra is ready to lease out any model from its passenger vehicle portfolio, which includes the TUV300, Scorpio and the recently launched Marazzo.

You might think that those costs are a bit too steep. On the contrary, you will have to pay lower or no down payments for vehicles and there is no risk on resale value, as after the lease expires the vehicle just needs to go back to Mahindra. As far as maintenance costs are concerned, they are covered in the monthly lease. Other tedious stuff that you don’t need to take care of includes road tax, insurance, on-road assistance and accidental repairs. If things go wrong beyond repair, Mahindra also promises to deliver a replacement vehicle within 24 hours.

Mahindra has tied-up with Orix and ALD automotive, both of which are global players in vehicle leasing services. The leasing service is currently available in six cities – Pune, Hyderabad, Mumbai, New Delhi, Ahmedabad and Bengaluru. In the next phase, Mahindra will add 19 new cities to the list. Depending on the model and city, a customer can lease a model for up to five years.

As per Mahindra, penetration of car leasing services in India currently is less than 1 per cent. However, in countries like UK, USA and Germany, the acceptance rate is much higher at 45 per cent, 33 per cent and 32 per cent respectively.