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eThekwini Mayor, Councillor Cyril Xaba, lauded Mahindra South Africa for opening its largest car assembly plant in the country in Durban.
The Indian car manufacturer officially commissioned the new Mahindra plant at the Dube Trade Port on 12 August 2025. Mayor Xaba described the move as a new chapter in local manufacturing, particularly in the automotive sector. “This milestone marks Mahindra’s long-term commitment to Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, and South Africa as a whole. It is also a vote of confidence in our government that we are succeeding in creating a conducive environment for investment and businesses to thrive in Durban and KwaZulu-Natal,” said Mayor Xaba.
Mahindra South Africa has moved from their existing assembly facility, which was retrofitted into a warehouse space at Dube Tradeport, into a brand new state-of-the-art facility built in Industrial Zone 2 in the new development.The new plant represents a significant scale-up in both capacity and technical sophistication. Designed to Mahindra’s global manufacturing standards, it incorporates advanced quality control systems, expanded production lines, and dedicated customization zones for South African customers.
“Our original facility played a pivotal role in establishing our local footprint,” says Rajesh Gupta, CEO of Mahindra South Africa. “As demand for our locally assembled Pik Up range continued to rise, we needed a facility with the scale, flexibility, and technology to meet future growth while maintaining world-class quality.”
The new plant lays the foundation for more expansion and new models to be built in South Africa that will be announced soon.The facility will more than double the one-shift capacity of Mahindra South Africa to over 1,000 Pik Up models a month. Its state-of-the-art technology enables complete nuts-and-bolts assembly of vehicles, making Durban a hub for automotive manufacturing. That means Durban will no longer just be assembling kits. It will be building vehicles from the ground up. This will pave the way for new models and possibly even next-generation vehicles to be built in Durban.
Mayor Xaba stated that Mahindra’s expansion aligns perfectly with eThekwini Municipality’s plans of growing the automotive sector.
“Our City has long identified the automotive industry as a key pillar of our economy and a source of jobs and innovation. In fact the automotive sector in KwaZulu-Natal already employs nearly 29,000 people directly in manufacturing, and another 50,000 in related sales and maintenance jobs. It is through investments like this that we can sustain and grow these numbers,” he said.
The mayor added that working with the province, the City is developing a KwaZulu-Natal Automotive Supplier Park in Illovo, which will group component manufacturers in one location to support all automakers in the region. It is part of creating a dedicated automotive zone in KwaZulu-Natal.
Therefore, Mahindra’s presence in the north of Durban and the supplier park in the south will together make eThekwini Municipality a powerhouse of automotive production.
“These initiatives align with our vision of making eThekwini the automotive capital of Africa,” said Mayor Xaba.
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