German luxury car maker Mercedes Benz on Thursday announced commencement of assembly of the S-Class sedan in India and has slashed the car's price by Rs 18 lakh to enhance its position in the country.
The locally produced top-end model S 500 will be priced at Rs 1.39 crore (ex-showroom, Delhi) and will be rolled out from the manufacturing facility in Chakan, Pune, Mercedes-Benz India said in a statement, adding that this strategic move will help to cater to the increasing demand. In January, the company had launched the S-Class luxury sedan in India, priced at Rs 1.57 crore (ex-showroom, Delhi) for the launch version of the new S-Class, which was fully imported.
The company has already sold out the 125 units of the launch edition allocated by its German headquarters for India. The new S-Class currently has a waiting period of approximately 3 months, it added. Mercedes-Benz India Managing Director & CEO Eberhard Kern said: "No other car stands for Mercedes-Benz brand promise more than the S-Class and we are delighted to manufacture the new S-Class at our state-of-the-art production facility in Chakan, Pune."
He further said: "This also reiterates our commitment to bring world class manufacturing facilities in India to support our growth in the luxury automotive business." The company has advanced the plan to locally assemble the S-Class by a couple of months due to robust demand and has opened bookings for deliveries in June. Currently, Mercedes-Benz India locally produces S-Class, E-Class, C-Class, Gl-Class and the M-Class, while it imports completely built units of the A-Class, ClS-Class, SlK-Class and the luxury tourer B-Class, among others.
Asked why the entire duty benefit was not being passed onto buyers, Kern said the locally assembled model will be a five-seater, while the imported model was a four-seater. Kern said the capacity at the Chakan facility will be doubled to 20,000 units per annum by the end of the month. The company has spent Rs 250 crore for this second phase of expansion, taking its overall investment in the facility to Rs 850 crore since it began local assembly in 2009.