Tata Harrier Crosses 1 Lakh Sales Milestone: A Look At Its Roller Coaster Journey

It took the Tata Harrier a little more than four years to achieve its one lakh sales milestone. And while it isn’t the quickest around to hit the six digit figure, for a car costing over Rs 25 lakh (on-road), it’s a feat achieved nonetheless. The Harrier has been on sale since January 2019 and is one of Tata’s premium models ever made.

The OG Harrier 

The OG Harrier was launched in 2019 and was one of the first midsize SUVs to go on sale. Back then, Tata’s goal was very simple: offer a larger product but price it at the same range as the Creta to grab a slice of its pie. The formula worked in the initial days with the Harrier doing decent numbers, but it failed to keep up the momentum.

Why It Didn’t Work?

That’s because the package wasn’t complete. The main one was that there wasn’t a sunroof on offer. Plenty of features were missing such as a powered driver’s seat, ventilated front seats, wireless phone charger and more. On top of that, the product had rough edges such as a glitchy infotainment system and niggles. 

And despite Fiat offering the 170PS tune of its 2-litre diesel engine, Tata chose to offer their SUV with the lower 140PS version. But the biggest miss out of all of these is the lack of an automatic transmission, which gave the Harrier a serious black mark. Tata, though, was quick to react and almost a year after the first version came, launched the 2020 Harrier. 

Welcome The Rectified 2020 Harrier 

The updated model packed all that was missing in the first version. So it packed a larger panoramic sunroof, came with a more diesel engine paired to a smooth shifting 6-speed automatic transmission and had all the missing features present in it. This, in our opinion, should have been on offer from day one, but better late than never. 

 

 

 

 

 

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With its improvement, the Tata Harrier was back in the spotlight, racking up decent sales. And to keep its excitement, Tata launched plenty of special editions with this model. The Dark Edition looks stealth, while the Camo and Kaziranga Edition look unique. Then there was the Jet Edition, which added a dose of premiumness with the use of its colours. And whenever Tata launched a special edition, it also released new features, which will then trickle down to standard variants. 

2023 Brought More Crucial Updates 

All good, but despite that there were still some downsides to the SUV. For example, the 8.8-inch touchscreen infotainment system had oldschool graphics and was laggy to use. And competition started offering ADAS features. But the latest 2023 update fixed those with a slicker 10.25-inch unit and autonomous driving features. 

What’s Next?

And Tata isn’t set to stop there with the Harrier nameplate. The Indian marque is busy prepping up the facelifted Harrier, which takes plenty of influence from the Harrier EV displayed at Auto Expo 2023. And yes, the Harrier is soon going to be fully electric and could get an all-wheel drive setup with dual motor. So yes, exciting times ahead.

Currently, the Tata Harrier is priced from Rs 15 lakh (ex-showroom) and locks horns with the Mahindra XUV700, MG Hector, Hyundai Creta and Jeep Compass.