MG Motors to ramp up ZS EV production from March: Rajeev Chaba

NEW DELHI: Morris Garages (India) Motors is planning to ramp up production of ZS EV in order to deliver 500 units a month by the end of March, an official said on the sidelines of the launch of the electric SUV here on Thursday.
“Bookings have surpassed our expectations and now we are going to review our supply chain. It will take a while because a lot of things come from abroad.We are expecting to deliver 500 cars by the end of March. We were initially targeting 200 cars a month. But now, we need to reconsider and increase the production by 200-300 units,” Rajeev Chaba, president and managing director, MG Motor India, told TOI.
READ ALSO | MG ZS EV: Features and variants explained
MG ZS EV debuted in India in two variants — Excite and Exclusive — at Rs 20.88 lakh and Rs 23.58 lakh (ex-showroom) respectively. MG ZS EV is set to rival Hyundai Kona EV and Tata Nexon EV.
“There are two distinct kinds of customers. 80% of our bookings have come from personal user buyers and they are likely to go for Exclusive variant because these buyers are high-end customers anyway. However, there are some new-age mobility solution fleet providers who are interested in EVs are expected to go for the lower (Excite) variant,” Chaba said.
MG Motors India had earlier in 2019 said that EVs are not a mass segment in India as of now and initially and it is looking at selling 2,000-3,000 units per annum. However, the carmakers received over 2,700 pre-launch bookings in five cities: Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Bangalore and Hyderabad. Interestingly, the bookings of ZS EV was more than the total number of electric cars sold in India in 2019.
MG Motors will also increase the production of its runaway success Hector SUV from Q2 of 2020. "We currently manufacture 2,500-3,000 units of Hector a month. It's a sweet ache for us that we are running out of the inventory. The company is targetting to produce 4,000 units from April onwards," Chaba added.