Friday, September 18, 2009

Mahindra Committed to Ultra-Competitive US Pickup Truck Market



MahindraPlanet has been continuing a dialogue with Global Vehicles USA’s Mike Geylin over the last two weeks. We’ll summarize all that has transpired:

MahindraPlanet posted our Open Letter to Mahindra on September 8th. The letter addressed concerns gathered from readers of this blog, and general commentary from around the net. The intent was to offer constructive criticism and solicit a response from Mahindra which we did receive.

Contact
As noted by our comment contributors (thanks joecallimachus and Anonymous) the GV/Mahindra website and contact email address had some issues. This was confirmed by Geylin:


“I understand yours and some of the correspondents’ frustration over
non-responses and I apologize. There was an issue on our end with emails going
to infor@gv-usa.com we have addressed this issue.”
Launch
Delays have plagued the Mahindra pickup launch. With my personal experience in heavy truck and bus OEMs and Tier 1 automotive engineering, I can relate to vehicle launch issues. All of my experience was with domestic product and companies with established history and infrastructure in the North American market. Trust me, it is difficult to launch a new vehicle domestically, I can’t imagine the logistic challenges Mahindra is facing. No specifics were discussed, but it is clear that GV and Mahindra want their trucks to be the best possible product they can put in front of US consumers.


“As for the delays – these are quite normal with an introduction like ours. Much
more important to all parties involved – dealers, Global Vehicles, Mahindra
& Mahindra as well prospective customers – is getting the pickup truck
RIGHT, not meeting an “artificial” on-sale date. The United States is the most
sophisticated and competitive pickup-truck market, so the challenges for getting
things right looms large. Our and M&M’s aim is to do just that.”

MahindraPlanet will continue to bring you news as it comes our way. Have an opinion on the delays or any other aspect of Mahindra in North America? Make sure you vote on our launch date poll in the upper right corner, or post a comment. As always, please leave your comments, suggestions, questions, or complete flame-jobs on our posts or send them via email. If you have a tip, story idea, or would like to contribute to MahindraPlanet, please contact us: Christian.Winfield@MahindraPlanet.com

2 comments:

Don said...

I don't buy a penny's worth of their response, but it was thoughtful and kinda sweet. Been around the corporate world far too long and smelled quite a few high piles. I smell one here.

Now, if they'd just be honest and tell us the obvious, I wouldn't have any issues.

What's happening is that they're waiting in hopes of the chicken tax being lifted in one of these now running congressional sessions.

Because they haven't built one truck here yet, and won't have the facilities to do so anytime soon, every last truck they send will be tagged with an extra 25% on top.

That truck is ready, though our pocketbooks are not while the chicken tax is still in play.


Mahindra/GV,
some of us were born at night, but it wasn't last night, m'kay?

Don B

Unknown said...

Makes you wonder if the Chicken Tax is the reason, or something else.

The Indian electric car company, REVA, is going to put a manufacturing plant in New York state, and appear to be getting $40 million dollars to do it. Seems like Mahindra could work a deal like that, or get an exclusion from the gov.

http://industry.bnet.com/auto/10002457/indian-electric-car-may-be-built-in-upstate-new-york/