Carmakers are racing to break production bottlenecks. For buyers staring down months-long delivery backlogs at local dealerships, relief is finally being hammered into factory assembly lines. Mahindra & Mahindra unveiled an aggressive blueprint to push monthly sport utility vehicle manufacturing up 27% to 82,000 units by March 2027. Across borders, Tata Motors crossed the 95% ownership threshold in Italy's Iveco Group, paving the way to take the commercial vehicle titan entirely private.
Both industrial plays land as Indian automakers navigate shifting festive buying patterns and soaring electric vehicle demand. Mahindra started FY27 rolling out 64,500 SUVs a month, crept to 68,000 units in September, and now faces assembly floors running at full tilt. To clear customer orders, the company will pour fresh capacity into its Chakan hub and build a greenfield facility in Nagpur, targeting a massive run-rate of 1.32 lakh monthly SUVs by FY31. Product pipelines will accelerate in tandem. Mahindra scheduled five major rollouts by June 2027—led by a model on its NU_IQ architecture, an all-new electric SUV, the Scorpio Lifestyler pickup, a refreshed SUV, and a commercial workhorse.
In Europe, Tata Motors locked down its transnational commercial vehicle ambitions. An additional 18.31 million shares were tendered during the reopened offer window for Iveco Group, raising Tata’s provisional holding to 96.29% across 256.47 million shares. The buyout tranche cost €263.65 million. Having cleared the mandatory 95% threshold, Tata will trigger a Dutch statutory squeeze-out to mop up remaining minority equity. Payment settles on November 13, following final result verification on November 12. The buyout secures direct operational command over Iveco’s European truck, bus, and powertrain networks.
On Indian showroom floors, customer footfalls diverged sharply. Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations (FADA) data revealed overall passenger vehicle retail registrations fell 14.23% year-on-year to 5,07,768 units in October. The drop stemmed from the calendar shift—Diwali moved into November this year, whereas Navratri and Diwali both fell in October last year. Yet month-on-month volumes surged 18.86%, registering the third-highest October total on record. Commercial vehicle and passenger car dealers entered November carrying 43 to 45 days of inventory.
| Automotive Segment | October 2026 Volume | YoY Shift (%) | Key Market Leaders |
|---|---|---|---|
| Electric Passenger Vehicles | 37,049 units | +76.47% | Tata Motors (14,669), Mahindra (8,538), JSW MG (5,939) |
| Passenger Vehicles (Total) | 5,07,768 units | -14.23% | Maruti Suzuki (41.75%), Tata Motors (14.47%), Mahindra (12.80%) |
| Two-Wheelers | 23.21 lakh units | -28.35% | Honda (27.47%), Hero MotoCorp (25.78%) |
But the powertrain transition picked up speed. Electric passenger car retail sales jumped 76.47% year-on-year to 37,049 units, capturing 7.3% of the total passenger car market. Tata Motors held the electric lead with 14,669 registrations, trailed by Mahindra at 8,538 units and JSW MG Motor India at 5,939. VinFast logged 2,571 registrations, while Maruti Suzuki posted 1,200 electric units. Two-wheelers told an identical story: while total registrations dropped 28.35% to 23.21 lakh units—where Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India edged out Hero MotoCorp—electric two-wheelers surged to claim 9.65% of the market.
Supply chains are adjusting rapidly. Maruti Suzuki reported 1.2 lakh pending bookings for factory CNG cars alone, while its Baleno facelift crossed 50,000 sales in two months. To insulate future EV output from import shocks, Tata Motors Passenger Vehicles CEO Shailesh Chandra confirmed domestic battery cell assembly will begin within twelve months, aiming for deep localization of cells and chemistry over the next two to three years. At the same time, Honda Cars India announced that its first domestically produced electric SUV will carry the 'ALPHA' nameplate ahead of a global premiere on December 2.