Carens garners 50,000 bookings, third shift starts at plant

Kia India which opened pre-bookings for its three-row UV, Carens in January, said it has crossed the 50,000-unit bookings mark in less than two months.

The break-up in terms of trim, it said is around 50 percent for the 1.5-litre, diesel-powered trims, with the remaining coming from the two petrol engines on offer – 115hp, 1.5-litre, naturally-aspirated unit and 140hp, 1.4-litre, turbo-charged mill. Around 45 percent of the bookings are for the top-spec Luxury and Luxury Plus trims. The other three variants on offer are the Premium, Prestige and Prestige Plus.

The company’s chief sales officer, Myung-Sik Sohn, said he hoped that the semiconductor shortage would ease from Q2 CY2022. Meanwhile, to cut down long delivery period, the company has started a third shift at its Anantapur manufacturing facility this month.

The Carens was launched in early February at an introductory ex-showroom price tag of Rs 899,000. The vehicle takes on the Mahindra Scorpio, Maruti XL6, MG Hector Plus, Mahindra XUV700 and the Hyundai Alcazar. The vehicle is targeted families looking for a well-appointed, spacious cabin as well as day-to-day practicality, and a choice of multiple powertrains.

With the Carens going home to 5,300 buyers in the launch month itself, demand is strong from across the country with metros and Tier 2 towns contributing 60 percent of pending orders. Kia India had envisaged volumes of 50,000 units from the Carens in this calendar to take its 300,000-unit installed capacity at its Anantapur plant to full utilisation.