When Mahindra went knocking at Aisin Seiki of Japan to procure a new automatic gearbox for its XUV500, they were told that the orders quoted weren’t big enough for Aisin to bother about them.
Incidentally, at the same time, partner SsangYong was also in the market looking for an automatic for its upcoming compact SUV. Shrewd Mahindra pooled its orders with those of its Korean partner and resubmitted the proposal. Aisin agreed, dotted lines were signed upon and cordial handshakes followed. The rest, we will come to know next year!
The auto box signed up for the show is believed to be a high torque capacity 6-speed automatic designed for transverse engine, front-wheel-drive vehicles. Aisin claims improved fuel efficiency as well as improved shift response with this particular series boxes.
So then, things stand here
According to Autocar India, the awaited XUV500 is expected to be more powerful and will come with a fully-automatic gearbox; courtesy, as we now know, Aisin Seiki.
A quick search revealed Aisin to be related to Toyota Group and, interestingly, having had an affair with none other than BorgWarner in the past. Autocar says that Mahindra can up the power to almost 30 more horses taking the marketing figure to 170bhp from the current 140. They further say that, this would be limited to the automatic gearbox XUV500 only as the manual tyranny on the current XUV500 is not designed to handle any more power or torque.
As we have talked earlier as well, there are parallel talks of a facelifted XUV500 on offer which is speculated to be launched next year. This clearly hints at the possibility of Mahindra launching the high powered automatic gearbox on the facelifted XUV500.
The initial spurt for the XUV500 has abated and the demands have plateaued at 2000-2500 mark in the recent months. With the launch of the entry level W4 variant, things seems to have improved for Mahindra as they saw rise in sales to 3,522 units in January 2014 as compared to the ~2300 units it sold for the last two months individually. These were all manual, of course.
Launch of XUV500 automatic is expected by the middle of next year 2015.
Also Check Out: Menacing Mahindra KOMODO SUV Concept [Pic Gallery]
