Mumbai: Home-grown auto major Tata Motors Wednesday launched its most-awaited premium mid-size sports utility vehicle (SUV) in diesel, Tata Harrier in the domestic market at starting price of Rs 12.69 lakh (ex-showroom Mumbai).


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Built around Tata's Impact Design 2.0 at the company's new manufacturing line at the Pune facility, the five-seater SUVhas a lot of the design features from the concept car, H5X that was showcased at the 2018 Auto Expo.


"With this product, Tata Motors has rightfully enteredthe premium mid-size SUV segment. The Harrier is a strong proof point of our turnaround 2.0 strategy, and it will be a game changer in the market," Tata Motorschief executive and managing director Guenter Butschek said.


The new vehicle from the Tatas will compete with the likesof Jeep Compass, Hyundai Creta, Hyundai Tucson and the Mahindra XUV500.


"The all-new Harrier is our most premium offering yet and will attract aspiring buyers. Built on the Omega architecture, which is derived from Land Rover's D8 platform, the Harrier is a testament of our continued efforts to deliver global products," said Mayank Pareek, president of passenger vehicle business unit, Tata Motors.


The passenger vehicle business of Tata Motors is going through strength to strength on the back of new products and Harrier promises to further strengthen company's market presence by surpassing all current benchmarks and paving entirely new standards for SUV market in the country, he added.


Tata Motors saw an 8 percent drop indomestic sales to 50,440 units in December 2018 as compared with 54,627 units in the same month of 2017.


The company's passenger vehicle sales in the domestic market rose 1 percent to 14,260 units last month, compared with 14,180 units in December 2017.


As per SIAM, the passenger vehicles sales grew by 4.37 percent in April-December 2018 over the same period last year. Of this, the sale of passenger cars grew by 4.34 percent while the utility vehicle segment logged 2.63 percent growth.


The sale of vans grew by 12.89 percent in April-December period of last year over the period year-ago.