U.S. Mahindra Launch Delayed – Again
We’re perhaps starting to wonder if the Mahindra TR20 and TR40 diesel powered pickups will actually ever make it to U.S. shores. Recently it was reported that the trucks had completed all the necessary testing to meet Federal requirements including those set out by the Environmental Protection Agency. However, according to a statement from Pawan Goenka, Mahindra’s President of Automotive Operations, the U.S. launch has been postponed – from Spring until December 2010.
Initially Mahindra planned to launch the TR Stateside in Spring ’09; then it was pushed back to December ’09. Here were are a year later and seemingly little progress is being made; which must be making things increasingly frustrating for John Perez at Global Vehicles, the authorized importer of Mahindra trucks to the U.S. Perez has already stated that communication between GV USA and the Mahindra mothership has been sporadic at best.
According to Goenka, Mahindra aims to acquire between 5-7 percent of the small truck market in the U.S., but increasingly, even that is looking like a pipe dream. Adding fuel to the fire is the fact that small trucks built outside the United States and sold here are subject to a 25 percent tariff (known colloquially as the “chicken tax’). Not surprisingly, Mahindra is keen to seek a partner to locally assemble the 2.2-liter, diesel engined two and four-door trucks. Yet, thanks to yet further delays and mixed signals from India, such a scenario, let along selling the trucks here in sufficient numbers, is looking more and more unlikely.
[Source: pickuptrucks.com]
More by Huw Evans
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I think they will arrive in the US by the end of the year. Pawan Goenka is the president of Mahindras automotive division so I think his words mean something. Hes got to know that the delays have created naysayers, and that they have to deliver on their promises. So I take him at face value and am excited that there seems to be commitment. Plus, its not like the wait has been that long. Yeah it was supposed to be launched a year back but in hindsight, it is a good thing they did not launch then the market was tanking. Now there is some resurgence in sales and they will be entering at a better time. When was the last genuinely unique midsize pickup introduced in the US by our OEMs? I cant remember. The Suzuki Equator introduced in 2009 doesnt count because thats based on the Nissan Frontier. So my view is to give Mahindra a fair chance to succeed brushing it off completely at this point without even having taken one of their trucks for a test ride is hasty.