Jaguar Land Rover will launch the Jaguar XE, entry-level luxury sedan, in the Indian car market next year. It is expected that the vehicle will be launched at the 2016 Indian Auto Expo. The production of the sedan has already begun at JLR's manufacturing plant. It is the first Jaguar car which is being manufactured in this plant. This facility develops Land Rover models like Defender, Discovery, Range Rover and Range Rover Sport.
Tata Motors owned British luxury maker, JLR, has invested 1.5 billion pounds in this plant to develop new models based on new aluminium-intensive architecture. Jaguar's first ever SUV, the F-Pace will also be developed at this plant. This SUV is scheduled to make its global debut at the 2015 Frankfurt Motor Show.
The Jaguar XE sedan is the smallest and most affordable Jaguar ever-built. It will directly compete against the likes of Mercedes-Benz C-Class, Audi A4 and BMW 3-Series sedan. The sedan will come in both petrol and diesel fuel options. While the petrol engine will be a 2.0-litre turbocharged unit that offers two states of tunes 200PS and 240PS, the oil burner is a 2.0-litre Ingenium turbocharged engine that, too, comes in two states of tunes - 163bhp and 178bhp. The range-topping model will get a 3.0-litre supercharged V6 petrol engine that produces 340PS. This engine also powers the F-Type.
Both six-speed manual and 8-speed automatic versions will be on offer; however, the India-spec model will get the 8-speed auto version only. The company is likely to launch the car as CBU (Completely Built Unit) units initially; however, Tata Motors could also assemble the XE sedan at its Pune Plant.
