Nissan To Build Plant for Subcompacts in India
31 December 2006
Nikkei. Nissan Motor will build a factory in India that will start operations in the latter half of 2009 with an annual output capacity of around 200,000 units, The Nikkei learned Sunday.
Construction on the facility will begin this year, with an investment of ¥50-60 billion (US$420-504 million). The factory will produce 1-liter-class subcompacts. About 30% of the vehicles will be sold in India and the other 70% exported to Europe and other markets, according to the report.
Nissan will gradually expand the types of models produced from the plant, with total output rising to about 400,000 units in the future.
Top Nissan shareholder Renault SA has already drawn up plans to jointly produce vehicles with midsize Indian automaker Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. Although Nissan plans to invest in the Renault-Mahindra joint venture, the Japanese automaker will build its own factory as it bets on the Indian market’s growth potential and promising outlook as a production base.
In a bid to increase local procurement right away to boost cost-competitiveness, Nissan is asking parts manufacturers to bring their production to India as well.
Nissan currently exports vehicles to India from Japan, selling about 200 units a year. After building its auto factory there, the company will work on developing a dealership network and eventually open about 100 branches in major urban areas by 2010 or so.
Hopefully the range will include CNG vehicles...India has lots of its own natural gas and bad pollution problems, CNG makes a lot of sense.
Posted by: John Baldwin | 01 January 2007 at 08:42 AM
A very wise decision. China and India are ideal places to build smaller, lighter PHEVs + EVs + associated batteries + control elements etc more adapted to future markets. The internal demand + export market potential for normal size drivers is huge.
PHEVs could have CNG small genset as an option.
North American factories could specialize in over-sized Hummers, F-150/250, Rams and large 3-Ton SUVs to burn the remaining oil, keep the local biofuels factories going strong and satisfy the majority (60% over-sized) local drivers.
Posted by: Harvey D. | 01 January 2007 at 09:37 AM
Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) is going to export pickups, and SUVs to US market.
Posted by: allen_Z | 02 January 2007 at 07:48 AM
I don't know about China and EVs. I heard that they are building 500 coal fired power plants each year just to keep up with growth.
Posted by: SJC | 02 January 2007 at 02:53 PM