JSW MG Motor India that has recently announced of entering into the luxury cars segment with ‘MG Select’, said that the company would provide accessible luxury experience to its customers so that it can create a market for the mass customers.
“Our approach of accessible luxury will not only play to the price point but also the overall package itself. So, the way we brought in battery as a service in Windsor (electric car), similarly, the product, the entire ownership package, the experience, the curation of the individualised, discerning, exclusive experience will be there. This will help us to redefine luxury. We really want to create a new benchmark of luxury market,” Gaurav Gupta, Chief Growth Officer, JSW MG Motor India, told businessline.
The company will be launching its first luxury car in the first quarter of next year (by March 2025), another vehicle within 2025, and in the next two years, it plans launch four cars including sedans, which it doesn’t have it in its portfolio right now.
“We will have products which will be based on new energy vehicles (NEVs) -- plug-in hybrids, electric and hybrids -- and it will have various body styles like SUV, sedans, etc. The first year we want to target 12 cities to begin with. These will be standalone centres by itself and then we will expand more as we go along,” he said.
By having MG Select as its way forward for luxury channel, it takes the advantage of existing base (of MG customers) and will also help consumers get an additional option to have a wider choice of new-age cars coming in. So, for the new-age Indian customer looking for personalised, curated, exclusive luxury experience, this will be the answer, Gupta explained.
Meanwhile, speaking about electric vehicles (EVs), Gupta said that while the government has been very encouraging by helping a lot on the taxation aspect, and some State governments deciding to waive off local charges for registration, the approach of battery-as-a-service (BaaS) is actually encompassing all terms of encouraging people to move towards EV.
“This (BaaS) is about bringing the cost of acquisition lower...it is to help address the issue of acquisition price. So while lithium, etc is bringing the price of battery down, still the delta remain and hence when battery-as-a-service has been introduced by MG, we are almost equating the ICE (internal combustion engine) equals to EV as a car and bringing down your running cost/ acquisition cost,” he said adding that these factors only will encourage EV adoption.
Apart from Windsor, the company has now introduced the BaaS on Comet and ZS EV. While the Comet starts at ₹4.99 lakh + battery rental at ₹2.5/km, the MG ZS EV starts at ₹13.99 lakh + battery rental at ₹4.5/km, plus 60 per cent assured buyback after three years on all vehicles.