BMW X5 likely to get an upgrade in 2014

Renowned luxury car brand, BMW seems to be taking the Indian car market seriously as it plans to refresh the current line-up of cars in the country. Since the beginning of 2013, the company has been written off by many industry experts with speculations doing rounds that its German counterparts have overtaken the brand in terms of sales. Giving due regard to the policy followed by the auto maker in disclosing the sales figures, it has somehow lost out on its sheen in India, particularly due to regular upgradation of cars by its rivals. On one hand, Audi has almost revamped its entire fleet of vehicles in the past two years embarking a comeback in major car markets, while on the other, Mercedes-Benz is currently in the process of designing all its cars based on the Modular Front Architecture (MFA), a platform that has been recently adopted by the company.

Talking about India, BMW has been faring exceptionally well ever since becoming the leading car brand of the country, a place that it has recently lost out to Audi. The general saying among industry experts regarding BMW is that the company is quite late in introducing updated models in the Indian auto market. They feel that the gap between the global launch and Indian launch of any vehicle by BMW is higher as compared to its rivals. Meanwhile, as of now, the company is expected to buck this trend and seems to be on the right track as far new model launches are concerned.

Coming to portfolio of BMW cars in India, the sedan series has almost got their facelift versions with the recent being of 5 Series. However, in the Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV) segment, its been quite a while since X5 received an update. So, the company might be planning to introduce the next generation version of X5, which was long due. The facelift version was unveiled by BMW in May 2013 and is expected to arrive in the Indian car market soon. BMW has confirmed the development as company officials have affirmed that the car would arrive by 2014. However, it is still unclear that BMW would alter the engine options given in the current generation model. At present, the car is available with an option of two technical configurations, namely the 4.4-litre petrol and 3.0-litre diesel.

As seen in X5, which was unveiled by BMW earlier, it featured sleek headlamps that complements the new kidney grille. Also to mention, the model that had Black Panel display, heads-up display and advanced iDrive system, apart from the adaptive suspension mechanism. As the current generation X5 model is available in India from about Rs. 80 lakh, the possibility of a considerable price hike cannot be ruled out for the next generation version. It is likely that the company would be planning to bring the upcoming model through the Completely Built Unit (CBU) route in India as this strategy has been adopted by the company on its incumbent X5 model. Apart from the SUV range, BMW could be tweaking the line-up of its 'M' cars. Reportedly, the model that will undergo changes might be the M5 sports car; however nothing is confirmed as of now.