Its loud and clear that Mahindra is working on an automatic gearbox for their flagship SUV XUV500. According to some earlier reports, Japan based Aisin Seiki will supply the auto boxes to Mahindra and partner Ssangyong.
In a latest, a new mule of XUV500 has been spotted somewhere in India by a reader of MotorBeam.com. Now, there are two very interesting pointers to note here. First, the disclaimer or lets say a note to whoever drives this mule – ‘Not to be driven above 50kmph’! Second – MD003 AW, Japan!
Now, when we searched around for this string, we were directed to Aisin’s official Japanese corporate site revealing that this XUV500 mule does have some grave relation with Aisin and it can not be anything apart from the automatic transmission, unless Mahindra is also getting some more hardware from them!
We also have a sideshot of the mule which is unclear but does show the gear knob which appears to be different. The regular XUV500’s manual transmission knob has a brown head and is surrounded by silver ascents on the sides. The gear knob pictured here – first, appears smaller, and second, has a silver head!
With so much of suspicious pointers, there can not be anything which should stop us short of calling it an Automatic XUV500 mule! Now that you are convinced that this is the Automatic XUV500 (even if you are not, take the following lines as generic info ;)), let us also reveal that the XUV500 automatic is expected to get a bump in power of around 30PS, taking the total peak power output to 170PS and it is speculated to be a 6-speed auto transmission. More Details
Mahindra is expected to launch the XUV500 automatic sometime next year, which is when this 7-seat crossover is also slated to get a facelift.
Related: EcoSport Rival Mahindra S101 Snapped With XUV500-Like Production Headlamps; Engine Details
