Jaguar Land Rover, the British luxury carmaker owned by India’s Tata Motors, has started assembling the Land Rover Defender 110 at its plant in Pune, in western India, and has cut its India prices by as much as $35,700 at current exchange rates. The company, based in Coventry in the United Kingdom, now ships the vehicle from Slovakia to India as a kit of parts rather than as a finished car. That change lowers the import duty, and the saving shows in the price list.
Ex-showroom prices in New Delhi, in northern India, fall to $124,000 from $159,700 for the 3-liter gasolineand diesel versions. The 2-liter version falls to $104,000 from $118,700. According to media reports, bookings are open and deliveries start November 15. Only the Defender 110 in the X-Dynamic HSE trim is assembled in Pune. The Defender 90 and 130 stay imported as finished cars.
Mint reported that duty on the kits is 16%, against as much as 110% on fully built cars. Jaguar Land Rover also made features that were once optional standard on the Defender 110, according to media reports: seventeen on the 2-liter, worth up to $6,800, and up to twenty-nine on the 3-liter, worth up to $17,900.
The report’s figures show the gap Jaguar Land Rover faces. In 2025, Mercedes-Benz in Stuttgart, Germany, led India’s luxury market with nearly 19,300 cars, followed by BMW in Munich, Germany, with more than 17,700. Jaguar Land Rover came third with just under 6,000, ahead of Audi. In the first half of 2026, BMW sold 9,768 cars and Mercedes-Benz sold 9,075.
Jaguar Land Rover already assembles the Range Rover and Discovery in India, and the report says locally built models make up 95% of its India sales. Rajan Amba, managing director of Jaguar Land Rover India, told reporters at a media event in Mumbai, in western India: “India is a high-growth market for us. Yes the volumes are low, but we see a lot more potential in this market”. The company plans four electric models within a year, and the report says it will import them.
Why this matters. Import duty can decide where a premium product sits in a price band. Jaguar Land Rover has localized most of its range and will keep only a few trims imported. American and European brands weighing India should map duty by product line, not by company, and ask which models sell enough to justify local assembly.
A Land Rover Defender 110. (Photo: DeFacto, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
