MG Motor India to launch electric SUV in selected cities

MG Motor India, a wholly-owned arm of China's SAIC Motor Corp, Monday said it plans to launch its upcoming electric SUV in some select cities to begin with, a senior company official said.

The company, which plans to launch two models -- Hector SUV and a fully electric SUV -- over the next nine months, announced that its vehicles in the country would have over the air (OTA) technology.

"We will be launching the pure electric SUV in the fourth quarter (October-December) this year. It will be launched in some select cities across the country," MG Motor India Chief Commercial Officer Gaurav Gupta told reporters here.

He did not share details about the locations but said the vehicle would be able to go over 250 km in a single charge.

The company's first model, which has been christened as Hector, is slated for launch during June quarter this year. MG Motor has already initiated trial production of the vehicle at its manufacturing facility at Halol, Gujarat.

MG Motor is the only company besides Tesla to have OTA technology at its disposal, Gupta said.

"We will have OTA function in our cars. It is not there on any car in India right now. This has the potential to revolutionise mobility," he added.

OTA technology allows the auto maker to update its operating system in the vehicle helping refresh the content including entertainment aspects, he added.

OTA is a standard for the transmission and reception of application-related information in a wireless communications system.

MG Motor India plans to launch one product each year in India starting 2019.

-PTI