Now that Renault Duster has made its official entry into the compact SUV space, the next car which is highly awaited and anticipated to launch soon, is the Ford EcoSport. The car has the looks and the potential to go head to head with the legendary Duster. For months everybody is clueless about the time when it will be launched. Recently the Dearborn based manufacturer launched the EcoSport in Brazil, which made everybody speculate that it will launched by the end of 2012.
But now we have the official launch month of the car with us, which is February 2013. Day before yesterday Mr. Joe Hinrichs – President of Asia-Pacific and Africa, Ford Motor Company, Mr. Michael Boneham – MD of Ford India and Mr. Joginder Singh- Executive director of Ford Business Services, had a meeting with Ms. J.Jayalalithaa, Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, and invited her to launch the EcoSport in February.
At the meeting, these supreme Ford officials informed the Tamil Nadu CM that the company will recruit around 1,200 employees in the next one year for their Coimbatore business services center and Chennai manufacturing plant. This will take the total workforce count to 6,400 employees as currently there are 5,200 employees working.
In 1995, Ford established itself at Chennai during the term of Ms. J.Jayalalithaa and at present they are planning to expand their network by adding another manufacturing facility in Sanand, Gujarat.
The EcoSport is a sub-4 meter car which means that we can expect some killer pricing by Ford, as Mahindra & Mahindra did in the case of Mahindra Quanto. Engine options will include a 1.5 litre diesel engine only at the time of launch as it is quite important for the market and majority of prospective buyers, who are gradually shifting to diesel driven vehicles. The 1.5 litre engine will be assembled at the Chennai plant, while the 1.0 litre Ford EcoBoost technology engine also expected to be launch at the same time or maybe at later time.
Some of the highlighting features of the EcoSport would be technologies such as Powershift automatic transmission, SYNC, EcoBoost etc.
Although the Quanto has an advantage here as it is the first car to make an entry into the sub-4 meter SUV segment, we are sure EcoSport will get an edge over the other because of its looks, handling characteristics and features. We will keep you posted on the updates of Ford EcoSport launch in India, stay tuned to Car Blog India.
